The Life and Times 
OF Tennyson 

[From 1809 to 1850] 



BY 
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY 




New Haven: Yale University Press 

London: Humphrey Milford 

Oxford University Press 

MDCCCCXV 



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CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Tennyson's Early Years 1 

II. Poems by Two Brothers 41 

III. University Life 63 

rV-VI. The Literary Situation in the Transi- 
tion Period: 
Part One: Critical Literature of the 

Period 94 

Part Two : Surviving Eeputations of the 

Georgian Era 128 

Part Three: Popular Authors of the 

Period 163 

VIL The Poems of 1830 205 

VIIL Christopher North's Review . ... 227 
IX-X. The Annuals : 

Part One: The Origin and History of 

the Annuals 245 

Part Two: Tennyson's Contributions to 

the Annuals 265 

XL The Poems of 1832 279 

XII. Lockhart's Review of Tennyson's 

Second Volume 310 

XIIL The Ten Years' Silence— First Half 

(1832-1837) 325 



vi , CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. The Ten Yoars' Silence— Second Half 

(1837-1842) 357 

XV. The Poems of 1842 378 

XVI. Receptionof the Poems of 1842 . . . 416 
XVII. American Eeception of the Poems of 

1842 446 

XVIII. Christopher North's Later Attacks on 

Tennyson 465 

XIX. Tennyson's Ijension and Bulwer's 

Attack . ' 497 

XX. The Princess 530 

XXI. Poet Laureate 568 

XXIL Arthur Henry Hallam 589 

XXIII. In Memoriam 616 



INTRODUCTION 

Professor Lounsbury's name, I suppose, is most 
closely associated by the public with his studies in 
Chaucer and Shakespeare. His literary taste, how- 
ever, was singularly catholic. Pope and Dryden, for 
example, appealed to him strongly because of their 
pugnacity and the keenness of their satire. Their 
poems he knew intimately, and he often quoted pas- 
sages from them in conversation, not always accu- 
rately but rather by way of a paraphrase which gave 
new edge to an epigram. Of later poets the ones he 
read most were Byron, Browning, and Tennyson. 
From any one of the three, he would repeat, when in 
the mood for it, long stretches running to hundreds 
of verses. Among the poems of Tennyson which he 
sometimes recited were ^Locksley Hall,' the 'Ode on 
the Death of the Duke of Wellington,' and parts of 
'Maud,' 'The Princess,' and 'In Memoriam.' Many 
of the quotations in this volume were first written out 
from memory. 

This admiration for Tennyson began in youth and 
continued through a long life. It was his habit when 
a schoolboy to clip from the newspaper any new 
production of the poet and paste it in a scrapbook, 
first, I daresay, committing the lines to memory; and 
the most notable essay that he wrote while in college 
was a defence of 'Maud' against hostile criticism. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

Long afterwards, when the second 'Locksley Hall' 
made its appearance, he contributed to 'The New 
Englander' a most illuminating contrast and compari- 
son between this poem and the one of sixty years before 
bearing the same name. The last lectures which he 
gave at Yale, a decade ago, were on Tennyson and the 
poet's early contemporaries. Always, the man who 
had lived through the greater part of the Victorian 
era set himself squarely against the wave of cheap 
depreciation which at times threatened to overwhelm 
Tennyson. Though he admitted the poet 's limitations, 
he insisted upon his greatness. 

It was while Professor Lounsbury was in the midst 
of his lectures that he planned a literary biography 
of Tennyson. He never expected to cover the poet's 
entire career, but he hoped that he might come down 
to the publication of 'The Idylls of the King.' When 
compelled to stop he had reached 'In Memoriam,' 
though he had collected most of his materials for the 
subsequent decade. In no wise was his book intended 
as a rival to other biographies of the poet, least of all 
as a rival to the 'Memoir' of Tennyson by the poet's 
son. "That work," Professor Lounsbury remarks in 
notes which he had made towards a preface, "must 
always be the final authority on the points it deals 
with directly. All other biographies are under 
obligations to it. My own obligations are sufficiently 
shown by the numerous facts borrowed from it, which 
are duly acknowledged on page after page." At the 
same time, he goes on to say: "It is a matter of 
supreme difficulty for one who is united to a man by 



INTRODUCTION ix 

the closest of personal ties to tell satisfactorily the 
story of his life. Especially is this so in the case of 
a son. He cannot say anything in censure. Coming 
from him, it would seem an act of impiety towards a 
dead man. Equally he cannot say anything in praise, 
even that which all the rest of the world would feel to 
be justly due. It would be attributed in his case to 
filial affection, not to the conclusion of an impartial 
judge. Hence whatever appreciation he introduces 
must come from the outside. Others must be brought 
forward to say for him what he cannot say for himself 
without being subjected to malevolent criticism. Such 
a method of conveying an estimate is always unsat- 
isfactory." This comment on the procedure of the 
poet's son presents clearly Professor Lounsbury's 
point of view. Free from the trammels of relation- 
ship, he will always speak out as an unbiassed critic 
in just praise and blame. This is what he did years 
ago in his ^Life of James Fenimore Cooper.' In no 
other way can one arrive at a true appraisal of a 
writer. Professor Lounsbury's studies may be 
regarded as supplementary to the * Memoir ' by Hallam 
Tennyson. 

The title which the author chose for his book was 
'The Life and Times of Tennyson.' Had the work 
been brought nearer to completion, this would have 
more properly described its scope than it does now. 
Still, even in that case, there would have been need 
of a brief explanation. It was not Professor Louns- 
bury's purpose to relate anew those well-known inci- 
dents in the poet's life which may be easily found 



X INTRODUCTION 

elsewhere. What he ever kept in mind was the 
literary career of Tennyson. From many sources, 
some of them very obscure, he drew such personal 
incidents as would contribute directly to the end he 
had in view. This is true even of the chapter on 
Tennyson's youth. Most of the material that went 
into those pages has a direct bearing on the poet's 
future career. It was a difficult chapter to write, for 
the boyhood of Tennyson has been passed over lightly 
by all who have written upon him. Indeed, none of 
them seems to have known much about it. No more 
was it Professor Lounsbury's intention to make a full 
survey of 'Hhe times" embraced by the poet's eighty 
years. That would have been a labor alike valueless 
and impossible. As the reader will see, he has con- 
fined his story to what immediately concerned Tenny- 
son. So much and no more of ''the times" was 
admitted. Accordingly certain great names of the 
Victorian era either are casually mentioned or are 
rendered conspicuous by their absence. They have 
to give place to men who exerted a measurable 
influence upon the varying fortunes of the poet's 
literary career. These men were obviously not Brown- 
ing and Matthew Arnold; they were, for the early 
period, "Christopher North," John Gibson Lockhart, 
and scores of other reviewers whom the world has long 
since consigned to oblivion. The opinions of these 
critics then swayed the public for or against an author. 
This is the reason why many of them are given a new 
lease of life here. In a note summarizing his plan, I 
find Professor Lounsbury saying: ''I wish to bring 



INTRODUCTION xi 

out clearly not only what took place in the life of the 
poet during the period in question, but the situation 
in which he found himself as regards literature, the 
hostility which he encountered at the outset of his 
career, and the circumstances which brought it about 
and the influences that were at work both to create it 
and to dissipate it. This is a field which has been 
touched upon by none of his biographers, or if touched 
upon merely alluded to." Though Professor Louns- 
bury was compelled to shorten the period he once had 
in mind, he has here depicted Tennyson's long struggle 
for recognition down to the great triumph of *In 
Memoriam.' It is the part of the poet's career that 
has the greatest human interest. 

An account of how Tennyson impressed his con- 
temporaries involved, first of all, a consideration of 
the critical literature of the time. * ' I have gone over, ' ' 
says Professor Lounsbury, ''every article of Tenny- 
son which appeared in any quarterly, monthly, or 
weekly of importance, whether in England or America, 
from 1830 to 1855. Nor have I confined myself to 
reviews which dealt directly with the poet. There is 
no article dealing with the literary situation or with 
the other writers of the period which I have not read 
with more or less care." It is quite evident that these 
statements may be extended, with some reserves, to 
the daily newspapers which contained literary notices. 
In these unworked mines, Professor Lounsbury dis- 
covered fresh material for his volume. Sometimes he 
used to grumble at the labor, but in his very heart he 
thoroughly enjoyed it. Time often renders old views 



xii INTRODUCTION 

and old opinions so absurd that they become a source 
of delight to a man having Professor Lounsbury's 
extraordinary sense of humor. He finds ''men extolled 
to the skies whose names are now forgotten, and men 
contemptuously decried whom the world now cherishes 
as the greatest representatives of their age. ' ' Through 
all this critical literature Professor Lounsbury slowly 
ploughed his way. Some readers, he apprehended, 
might object to his frequent extracts from it. Them 
he would console by declaring that he had refrained, 
out of regard to their sensibilities, from quoting scores 
of passages which he might have adduced to illustrate 
further the views once current concerning Tennyson. 
By way of parenthesis, it may be observed that 
Professor Lounsbury placed a very low estimate on 
the intrinsic value of the criticism contemporary with 
the poet. After admitting that he has met with some 
articles still worth reading, he goes on to say : ' ' The 
chief impression produced upon me by them taken as 
a whole is the general worthlessness of most contem- 
porary criticism. Especially is this true of works of 
the imagination. When it comes to the description of 
matters of fact, superior knowledge may point out 
errors of detail, but where taste and culture are the 
leading factors, we never have much more than an 
expression of the reviewer's likes and dislikes. . . . 
After a careful examination of the criticism which 
Tennyson received during the twenty-five years under 
consideration, it is well within bounds to declare that 
nine tenths of it is not worth the paper on which it 
was written, and that no small share of this nine tenths 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

is discreditable to the men who wrote it and to the 
periodicals in which it appeared." Why, then, it may 
be asked, should one consider it? Why disturb the 
dead I Because in contemporary criticism and nowhere 
else lies the literary biography of Tennyson. 

While engaged upon this book. Professor Louns- 
bury's eyes, never very good, failed him for close and 
prolonged work. At best he could depend upon them 
for no more than two or three hours a day. Sometimes 
he could not depend upon them at all. That he might 
not subject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit 
of writing in the dark. Night after night, using a 
pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch a series of 
paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This 
was almost invariably his custom in later years. 
Needless to say, these rough drafts are difficult reading 
for an outsider. Though the lines could be kept 
reasonably straight, it was impossible -for a man 
enveloped in darkness to dot an i or to cross a t. 
Moreover, many word^ were abbreviated, and numer- 
ous sentences were left half written out. Every detail, 
however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. 
With these detached slips of paper and voluminous 
notes before him, he composed on a typewriter his 
various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical 
sequence. His next step was to subject his typewritten 
copy to extensive revision with pen and ink. Subse- 
quently he had a fair copy made for him by one more 
expert in manipulating the typewriter. Nor did 
composition end there. Besides having highly devel- 
oped the instinct of the literary artist. Professor 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

Lounsbury strove at all times for perfect accnracy. 
Before letting his manuscript finally go to the printer, 
he went over it again with extreme care, modifying 
where necessary his statements of fact, and re- 
phrasing many sentences in order to gain the effects 
he aimed to produce. Such was his usual procedure. 

It is accordingly to be lamented that none of the 
chapters printed here received Professor Lounsbury 's 
final revision. All but three of them, however, had 
reached the stage of the second typewritten copy ; and 
on several of these he had indicated some of the 
alterations which he wished to make; but he had not 
proceeded far with this work — in no case through an 
entire chapter. Whenever it was clear just what he 
desired, I have made the emendations; otherwise I 
have ventured upon no change except where a wrong 
word had evidently slipped into the text, or where a 
quotation was not quite literally given. Of the three 
remaining chapters the fourteenth was nearly ready 
for the second typewritten copy, but was being with- 
held for additions the nature of which is not apparent. 
The first chapter, which deals with Tennyson's youth, 
was in a less satisfactory condition. Several of the 
paragraphs Professor Lounsbury planned to modify 
and reconstruct in the light of further study; and the 
views which he illustrates near the close on the 
precocity of great poets were not fully developed 
there. Indeed, the chapter, as he left it, broke off at 
the beginning of a sentence. In order to give an 
appearance of completeness to this chapter, I have 
transferred to it a few passages from one that comes 



INTRODUCTION xv 

midway in the book. Except for this and a few minor 
corrections, it was necessary to let this chapter stand 
in its incomplete state. The greatest perplexity arose 
over what to do with the last chapter — the one on 
*In Memoriam.' With the theme of this poem Pro- 
fessor Lounsbury's mind was filled during the last 
weeks of his life. Whenever his health permitted, he 
wrote out various paragraphs in pencil, and he had 
begun to organize them into a whole when the end 
came. Much that he designed to say about *In 
Memoriam' the reader will find in this chapter as I 
have attempted to piece it together ; and some passages 
will as surely be found there which would have been 
discarded had Professor Lounsbury lived to complete 
it. Most of all, his friends will miss those remarks on 
the poem which they have heard from him in conver- 
sation and which he intended to incorporate into this 
or a succeeding chapter. There exist also partial 
outlines for chapters on the Wellington *Ode' and on 
* Maud ' ; but they are too faint and uncertain to follow. 
They contain, however, certain observations of a 
general nature which I have inserted near the end of 
the chapter on 'In Memoriam.' 

In preparing the manuscript for the press, I have 
received much aid from Miss Helen McAfee, who has 
verified the quotations. Mr. Andrew Keogh of the 
Yale University Library has kindly read all the proofs, 
and has supervised the preparation of the index. For 
myself, I have to say that this last book of Professor 
Lounsbury's is here presented to the public as nearly 
as possible in the form which in my opinion he would 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

have desired. Nothing that he ever wrote better dis- 
plays his remarkable qualities as a literary historian, 
his brilliant wit and humor, and that mastery of style 
which places him among the foremost prose writers 
of recent times. 

WiLBUK L. Ckoss. 
Yale University, September, 1915. 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 



CHAPTER I 
TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 

The county of Lincoln, the second in size of the Eng- 
lish shires, is, so far as about one third of its area is 
concerned, a county of marshes and fens. These two 
words, however, as there employed, hardly convey to 
the reader in this country the idea that he would be 
likely to entertain. They mean not tracts of land 
covered partially or wholly with water, but cultivated 
soil reclaimed in one case from the sea and in the 
other from the overflow of streams. Accordingly they 
are not marshes and fens in the strict sense of the 
terms. They are level fields separated from each 
other not by fences or hedges, but by ditches and 
dykes. The so-called marsh in the neighborhood of 
Tennyson's boyhood home was a belt, from five to ten 
miles broad, of rich alluvial soil, stretching along the 
coast from the upper course of the Humber River to 
the neighborhood of Wainfleet, and protected from the 
ocean by sand dunes heaped up by the winds and 
waves. A few miles to the south of the place of his 
birth lay the much vaster fen country of the shire. 

The surface of the country is for the most part a 
great plain. Yet in contrast to its ordinarily level char- 
acter there run through it, in the general direction of 
north and south, two bold ranges of calcareous hills, 



2 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which rise in places to the height of two or three thou- 
sand feet. The range to the west is called the Cliffs, 
that to the east the Wolds. The latter extends from 
Barton-on-Humber to Spilsby. Towards its southern 
extremity and situated between low hills, lies the vil- 
lage of Somersby. It is rather entitled to the designa- 
tion of hamlet. It is a very small place now, and such 
it seems to have been always. In fact, it is too small 
to be found upon any but the largest maps ; early in the 
nineteenth century it contained not many more than 
half a hundred inhabitants. At that time the rector of 
the parish was the Reverend George Clayton Tenny- 
son. He was a man of lofty stature, of great physical 
strength, and of wide interests and tastes in many 
different directions. He paid attention to poetry, to 
painting, to music, and to architecture. He designed 
and built as an addition to the rectory a Gothic- 
vaulted dining-room, where on winter evenings his 
family gathered and spent the time in games and music 
and readings from favorite authors. In the rear of the 
house was the lawn which sloped down to the garden, 
along whose edge ran the little brook which played no 
unimportant part in the life of the children. Adjoin- 
ing the garden was the orchard. 

George Clayton Tennyson had married Elizabeth 
Fytche, the daughter of the vicar of Louth. Twelve 
children were the fruit of this union. Of these eight 
were sons. The first-born, George, died the year of 
his birth. Of the eleven others, the eldest was Fred- 
erick, born in 1807, the second Charles, born in 1808, 
and the third Alfred, who was born in 1809. Unlike 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 3 

the father all the children, with a single exception, 
passed the threescore and ten years allotted to man's 
life on earth. Some of them approached fourscore 
and several passed that mark. "The Tennysons 
never die," was the almost despairing cry of that one 
of the sisters who was engaged to Arthur Hallam, in 
the midst of the utter prostration of mind and body 
which followed the death of her lover. Tennyson him- 
self had passed by two months his eighty-third birth- 
day at liis death, and five of his brothers and sisters 
survived him, one of them, Frederick, the oldest of all. 
One of the petty controversies connected with the 
poet's life has arisen as to the exact date of his birth. 
In nearly all of the later accounts it is put down as 
having occurred on the sixth of August. Tennyson 
himself asserted that it took place on the fifth. His 
testimony to that effect is given by Canon Rawnsley 
to whom it came from the poet directly. **I had it," 
wrote the canon, "from Lord Tennyson himself that, 
though the 6th is popularly put down as the date of his 
birth, it really took place a few minutes before mid- 
night of the 5th. "^ In spite of his necessary presence 
on the occasion his independent testimony cannot be 
deemed of much value, certainly it is not conclusive. 
At that time he could not be expected to have any 
recollection of the event, even if in it he inevitably bore 
a particularly prominent part. But according to the 
advocates of this date, his statement is borne out by 
the evidence of one much better informed. In their 

1 ' Memories of the Tennysons, ' by H. D. Eawnsley, 1900, p. 3. 



4 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

opinion the father labored under the same impression 
as the son. Tennyson's baptism took place on the 
eighth of August. The record of the fact appears in 
the parish register written in the rector's own hand. 
Under the date mentioned there is the following 
entry : 

Alfred, son of George Clayton and Elizabeth Tennyson 
born August 5th. 

Against this view the advocates of the later date 
maintain that the fifth is due to a misreading in the 
parish register. This assertion was made long ago 
while the poet was still alive by one who professed to 
have examined with the greatest care the father's 
entry. According to his account the 6 had been mis- 
taken for a 5, **the top of the back stroke being some- 
what square and pointing to the right, and the ink at 
the back, or left, of the loop is rather faint ; but under 
a magnifier it can be traced through all the figure."^ 
At all events this date has been adopted in what may 
be called the official life of the poet. The fact seems 
to be that he was born about midnight, and so his birth 
could properly be assigned to either the fifth or the 
sixth day. Still, as there has now come to be a pretty 
general agreement on the adoption of the later date, 
that will doubtless continue to be considered as his 
birthday. 

In 1832, Arthur Hallam, visiting the home of the 
Tennysons, is said to have remarked, ''Fifty years 
hence people will be making pilgrimages to this spot. ' ' 

1 C. J. C. in 'Notes and Queries,' March 14, 1891, 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 5 

He certainly wrote in 1831 to Tennyson's sister that 
many years and even many ages after they were all laid 
in dust, young lovers of the beautiful and the true 
would seek the region where the mind of the poet had 
been moulded in silent sympathy with the everlasting 
forces of nature ; would point out the places which he 
would be supposed to have celebrated. Something must 
of course be pardoned to the enthusiasm of strong per- 
sonal attachment; perhaps even more to the fact that 
the speaker was very much in love with his friend's 
sister, and human nature is so constituted that a cir- 
cumstance of this sort has a tendency to check the 
preservation of a calm and judicial attitude of mind 
towards the qualities characterizing that sister's 
brother. There is no question, however, that in this 
case the prediction has been fulfilled. Pilgrimages 
were made to the spot within less than fifty years 
afterward. They will doubtless continue to be made 
when many additional fifty years have gone by. Still, 
it is not necessary to attribute an inspired clearness of 
vision to the utterance. How many are the unfulfilled 
predictions of this sort for which at the time there 
appeared the amplest justification to their utterers! 
They have been proclaimed in all sincerity by the easy 
admiration of youth, reinforced by the magnifying 
power of personal attachment. When the predictions 
are not realized, as too generally they are not, we no 
longer recall them, we forget, in fact, that they were 
ever made. But the one success in prophecy makes 
infinitely more impression than a hundred failures, 
and we cite its verification as a proof of special insight. 



6 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

In the rectory of the little village, with four poplars 
then standing before its door, and a brook flowing just 
below its garden, the childhood and most of the early- 
youth of Alfred Tennyson were spent. Of this period 
of his life, in spite of the numerous biographies of him 
which have been written, we have largely to content 
ourselves with generalities. For this the poet himself 
was mainly responsible. He was particularly hostile 
to anything in the shape of reports of his sayings and 
doings, to secure which seems frequently to be the 
specially engrossing desire of the modern author. 
This attitude was as marked in his early years when 
no one sought to gather information about him as it 
was in his later when every one was seeking to secure 
it at any cost. Then as afterward he held himself 
aloof from others in the intercourse of private life. 
He was averse to having his personality made in any 
way conspicuous before the public, or to attracting its 
attention by the disclosure of what he thought and 
said. Yet if certain accounts are to be trusted, he 
would have gained far more by such revelations than 
he would have lost. His intimate friend, FitzGerald, 
was wont to express regret that the casual utterances 
of Tennyson were not preserved. They were, he 
declared, sayings to be remembered, decisive verdicts. 
' ' Had I continued to be with him, ' ' he wrote to a friend 
in 1872, ^'I would have risked being called another 
Bozzy by the thankless World ; and have often looked 
in vain for a Note Book I had made of such things. ' ' 

This notebook has been found and printed. The 
reported sayings upon which FitzGerald laid so much 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 7 

stress, when read in cold blood, hardly justify the 
praise he la\ished. Nothing he has preserved would 
lead the reader to believe that much would have been 
lost by silence. This is far, however, from being an 
uncommon experience. Vapid and lifeless, not to say 
dull, are often the words when read, which seemed so 
full of sparkle and charm and brilliancy when heard. 
Such instances are frequent in the case of men whose 
conversation has attracted and delighted numbers, but 
cannot stand the test of publication. The success of 
the sayings depends at the time on other things than 
upon what is actually said. The effect produced upon 
the hearer has not been so much due to the words them- 
selves, or even to the thought or the way in which the 
thought has been expressed. It is rather the result of 
attendant circumstances — the sympathetic audience, 
the by-play that leads up to the utterance, the aptness 
of the introduction to the comment made upon the sub- 
ject under discussion, the looks and gestures and 
intonations with which the sentiments conveyed are 
accompanied and enforced. Detached from the agen- 
cies which contribute to the immediate impression, the 
effectiveness of the words uttered disappears. Com- 
mitted to print, they lose the point and force which 
belonged to them when spoken. 

Still, the words of a man of genius are well worthy 
of preservation without regard to their intrinsic value. 
The world is neither disposed to be thankless for the 
gift of the most trivial utterances of its greatest men, 
nor to blame the giver. There is no doubt, however, 
as to the state of mind any such action would have 



8 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

inspired in Tennyson himself. His own feelings are 
distinctly expressed in that verse of 'Will Water- 
proof's Lyrical Monologue,' when he speaks of that 
remote past when the great writer could give freest 
utterance to his thoughts and emotions with no fear 
of the reporter that travels in darkness or of the inter- 
viewer that wastes at noonday : 

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks 

Had yet their native glow ; 
Nor yet the fear of little books 

Had made him talk for show; 
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm 'd, 

He flash 'd his random speeches, 
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm 'd 

His literary leeches. 

This is far from being the only time or place in 
which Tennyson expressed his aversion to that 
remorseless publicity of modern life which waits upon 
him who has lifted himself up to a high position among 
his fellow men. Both in his writings and in his conver- 
sation he took in this matter the extremest of extreme 
ground. In one of his poems he manifested his feel- 
ings with a vehemence that amounted almost to bitter- 
ness. This is the one now entitled, 'To after 

reading a Life and Letters.' The person whom he is 
addressing is generally supposed to be his brother 
Charles; the 'Life and Letters' which he read, to be 
the biography of Keats prepared by Milnes, and pub- 
lished in 1848, Tennyson seems later to have desired 
to disclaim the idea that he had in mind this particular 
volume. The only reason apparent for this implied 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 9 

denial of the reference to the work is that it might be 
construed into an attack upon a personal friend. In 
truth, in his journal, William Rossetti records an 
assertion of Tennyson that this particular poem was 
written by him '' in a fit of intense disgust" after read- 
ing Medwin's journal of the 'Conversations of Lord 
Byron. ' It is so easy for the most honest of reporters 
to give a wrong impression of what has actually been 
said that the reader may be permitted to doubt that 
the poet ever made any unqualified assertion of this 
sort. It may be that Medwin 's work was mentioned by 
Tennyson as one of those he had in mind. But in 
itself it could never have been the inspiration of the 
sentiments expressed in this particular piece. 

The lines contained a peculiarly strong manifesta- 
tion of his personal feelings. They were originally 
printed in ' The Examiner ' for March 24, 1849. Later 
they were included in the sixth edition of the 'Poems' 
which appeared in 1850. It was not till the eighth edi- 
tion which came out in the latter part of January, 
1853, that the words "After reading a Life and 
Letters" were added. This makes it clear that Med- 
win 's work could not have been the one to which refer- 
ence was made. That author had not written a life 
of Byron, nor had he printed his letters. He simply 
purported to record his conversations. As, further- 
more, his work appeared in 1824, it was rather late in 
the day to become agitated about what had been 
reported a quarter of a century before. The poem, it 
is to be added, had after its title a quotation of the last 
line of Shakespeare's epitaph, ''Cursed be he that 



10 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

moves my bones. ' ' The words had here not the slight- 
est appropriateness. Shakespeare, or whoever wrote 
the epitaph, sought simply to express the natural 
desire that the body should be left undisturbed in the 
resting-place to which it had been consigned; that it 
should not, after the lapse of generations, encounter 
the fate of thousands in the crowded churchyards of 
England whose bones are dug up to make room for 
those of some newcomer to the grave. He was not 
thinking at all of what would be said of him after his 
death or what revelations would be made of his words 
and acts. In Tennyson's quotation from the epitaph 
invoking Shakespeare's curse upon those who will 
not let his ashes rest, he imputes by implication to 
Shakespeare feelings which the great dramatist 
pretty certainly never had, and very certainly never 
expressed. 

Tennyson was indignant that Keats 's letters should 
have been published. It was indicative of his general 
attitude. In this particular he stood at the opposite 
pole from that of his great contemporary. Browning 
entertained no objection to the curiosity felt about him 
and his works by ''the many-headed beast"; in par- 
ticular none when it sprang from respect or reverence. 
The indignation which some have felt and others have 
thought it decorous to feel at the publication of the 
letters which passed between him and his future wife 
was manifestly one with which that poet himself 
would not have had the slightest sympathy. There is 
little question that Browning, so far from being averse 
to this correspondence seeing the light, was at heart 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 11 

anxious that it should eventually be published. He 
could not but be well aware that it redounded to the 
credit of himself and the woman to whom he had 
become affianced. But no feelings of this sort char- 
acterized Tennyson. His idea was that an author 
should be known only by his works ; that his sentiments 
about men and things should never be disclosed; and 
that in particular there should be no revelation of his 
personal characteristics and his failings. It was in 
these words that in the poem under consideration he 
expressed his feelings towards the sort of biography 
for which he entertained special aversion: 

For now the Poet cannot die, 
Nor leave his music as of old, 
But round him ere he scarce be cold 

Begins the scandal and the cry: 

Proclaim the faults he would not show ; 

Break lock and seal ; betray the trust ; 

Keep nothing sacred ; 'tis but just 
The many-headed beast should know. 

He ended the poem by contrasting the better fate 
of him who dies unheard to that of him who drops dead 
in front of Glory's temple while the carrion vulture 
waits to tear his heart before the crowd. 

Tennyson's aversion to having anything said about 
himself was part of that peculiar susceptibility to criti- 
cism or comment of any sort which was not only one 
of his greatest weaknesses, but had a specially injuri- 
ous effect upon the success of his early career. It was 
ingrained in his nature and influenced his whole con- 



12 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

duct. To it and to its important results it will be neces- 
sary to call attention again and again. The truth is 
that he sought for himself two things absolutely incom- 
patible. He desiyed general recognition from the pub- 
lic and complete privacy for himself. He who gains 
the benefit of greatness must be resigned to partaking 
of its penalties. Tennyson's genius lifted him to a 
position where he was known and observed of all men. 
Interest in what he said, interest in what he did was 
inevitable. He himself spoke of the fierce light which 
beats upon a throne ; but that light beats just as fiercely 
upon him who occupies the throne of letters as upon 
him who occupies the throne of a realm. A great 
intellectual sovereign can no more succeed in hiding 
himself from the curiosity of his literary subjects than 
he can from their admiration and reverence. The one 
is a consequent of the other. It is not to the discredit 
of the present age, on the contrary it is distinctly to 
its credit, that it cares to hear more about its 
uncrowned kings than it does about those who are 
crowned. 

Tennyson furthermore was utterly mistaken as to 
the cause that has led to woeful ignorance, in which he 
seems to have rejoiced, of the great writers of the past. 
It was not due in the slightest degree to the reticence 
of their contemporaries, to their lack of curiosity, or 
to their indifference. In all these respects the men 
of former centuries were not unlike the men of 
our own. In the days of old, the poet did not merely 
die and leave his music behind him as the sole reminder 
to his contemporaries of his existence. At his death, 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 13 

then, began as much the scandal and the cry as there 
does now. The carrion vulture was then waiting to 
tear his heart before the crowd as eagerly as it waits 
now. The same feeling in truth has existed about the 
great writers of every period of the world's history. 
Furthermore, it is to be said that in the case of men 
whose achievements have lifted them above the level 
of the crowd, the assumed scandal and cry which arise 
at their death are purely a figment of the imagination, 
as much as is the existence of the carrion vulture 
waiting to tear his heart out before the crowd. The 
death of every really great man, be he poet, statesman, 
or warrior, instead of being followed by a proclama- 
tion of his faults, is marked by their concealment. His 
enemies, if enemies he has, are silent. His failings are 
kept in the background. Detraction is hushed, as his 
sorrowing fellow men become increasingly sensible of 
what they have lost. The attitude almost invariably 
taken is that of reverence, the sentiments expressed 
are those of grief and admiration. These same feel- 
ings doubtless existed in the past as they do in the 
present; and would naturally have found the same 
avenue to expression. But no means existed then of 
imparting to the general public what was well known 
in private circles. More than that, there was then no 
means of transmitting this knowledge to posterity. It 
is not to be forgotten furthermore that biography — ^in 
particular the biography of men of letters, now one of 
the principal staples of literary manufacture — hardly 
had an existence worth chronicling before the latter 
part of the eighteenth century. Hence the deplorably 



14 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

scanty knowledge we possess of all the greatest 
authors of the past. 

There is no question that Tennyson carried this 
aversion to publicity to an extreme which it requires 
self-restraint to call merely ridiculous. Some of the 
sentiments he expressed on the subject it is hard, in 
truth, to take seriously. In certain instances it would 
be paying them an exaggerated compliment to call 
them silly. Nothing in his opinion should be told of 
an author save what he himself chose to reveal per- 
sonally. * ' The poet's work is his life, and no one has a 
right to ask for more," he said several times to his 
friend, Francis Turner Palgrave. ''Beaching once," 
added Palgrave, "even the barbarity, as I could not 
help calling it, that if Horace had left an autobiog- 
raphy, and the single MS. were in his hands, he would 
throw it into the fire. And, consistently, he would 
never read such Lives. "^ Doubtless if such a state of 
things had come to actual trial, he would not have done 
what he said. If he had, he would certainly have 
deserved not only to be thrown into the fire himself 
but into everlasting fire, and his memory would have 
been held in just execration by all coming generations. 
But the view expressed represented after a fashion 
his general attitude. In a letter of his Farringford 
neighbor, Mrs. Cameron, written in 1860, she described 
him as pouring out his feelings on this subject with 
positive vigor and peculiar folly. The desire on the 
part of readers of becoming acquainted with the per- 
sonal life of great authors he represented as treating 

1 * Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Memoir by his Son, ' Vol. II, p. 484. 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 15 

them ''like pigs to be ripped open for the public." 
He thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and 
soul that he knew nothing of Jane Austen and that 
there were no letters preserved either of her or of 
Shakespeare. More than once he expressed sentiments 
like these in almost the same words. 

Tennyson's thanks to the Almighty had to suffer 
some abatement, for he lived long enough to see letters 
of Jane Austen published. In his opinion either noth- 
ing whatever was to be told of the person whose life 
was written or only that which would deprive it of the 
slightest interest. Accordingly he resented the por- 
trayal of the foibles and weaknesses of great men. If 
a disagreeable trait was disclosed, it was to the dis- 
credit, not of the possessor, but of the revealer that 
the disclosure had been made. His attitude in this 
matter is brought out strikingly in a comment of his 
which seems to be regarded as redounding particularly 
to his credit. At Tunbridge Wells was an old lady who 
flourished there with some repute on the strength of 
having known Dr. Johnson. She cherished memories 
of him and repeated incidents about him. Among 
other things she observed that he ''often stirred his 
lemonade with his finger and that often dirty." The 
observation is of no particular consequence, for it can 
hardly be said to add anything to what was already 
known. This method of stirring lemonade does not 
awaken Tennyson's resentment but the account of it 
did. That the great man should have a dirty finger 
and should use it improperly appeared to be in his 
eyes a fact which was not to the discredit of the owner 



16 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of the finger; but the relation of the fact was very- 
much to the discredit of the narrator. ''The dirt is 
on her own heart," he said. 

There is little question that the knowledge of some 
of his own failings was one of the reasons that led 
Tennyson to resent any disclosure to the public of the 
infirmities of the great. Men indeed, as a general 
rule, are more sensitive about the revelation of their 
foibles than of their vices. Tennyson's dislike of per- 
sonal details was to some extent based upon the 
knowledge that in certain particulars he was himself 
far from impeccable. Even in his university days his 
immoderate use of tobacco was a matter of offence to 
some of his associates ; for in that earlier time indul- 
gence in the habit was far from being so general as it 
became later. Still less was it practised on the grand 
scale in which the poet displayed it. Many indeed are 
the references not merely to his excessive use of 
tobacco but to the sort of tobacco he used. The two 
things did not impress favorably several of his most 
attached friends. To it they were sometimes wont to 
ascribe the ailments under which he labored. In 1838, 
Blakesley wrote to Milnes from Trinity College of a 
visit which the poet had been paying there. ''Alfred 
Tennyson," he said, "has been with us for the last 
week. He is looking well and in good spirits, but com- 
plains of nervousness. How should he do otherwise, 
seeing that he smokes the strongest and most stinking 
tobacco out of a small blackened clay pipe on an 
average nine hours every day? He went off to-day by 
the Wisbeach to Epping, where he complains that there 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 17 

are no sounds of Nature and no society ; equally a want 
of birds and men. ' '^ 

Blakesley lived to a good old age, but the friend he 
criticised survived him several years. As Tennyson 
persisted in smoking to the end of his life, it is reason- 
able to suppose that the diagnosis of the cause of his 
nervousness was due to the prejudices of the writer 
rather than to the real fact. 

A more sjrmpathetic tribute to his prowess as a 
smoker was given somewhat later by one who was fully 
competent to express an opinion on the subject. 
''Alfred," wrote Carlyle in December, 1842, ''is a right 
hearty talker; and one of the powerfullest smokers 
I have ever worked along with in that department!'" 
But far greater censure fell upon Tennyson for the 
carelessness of his personal habits and for the sloven- 
liness of his dress. There is more than one reference 
in the correspondence of this early period to the annoy- 
ance and vexation wrought by the untidiness of his 
appearance. So subject are we all to the domination 
of clothes that his indifference in these matters grieved 
the friendly and offended the fastidious. They did not 
speak of it to his enemies ; but they deplored it among 
themselves.^ 

In Tennyson's opinion, no facts of this kind were to 
be mentioned. The view of biography here indicated, 

1 * Life, Letters, and Friendships of Eichard Monckton Milnes, ' edited 
by T. W. Eeid, 1891, Vol. I, p. 221. 

2 ' New Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ' edited by Alexander Carlyle, 
Vol. I, p. 280. 

3 See in particular a letter of Henry Hallam in ' Mrs. Brookfield and 
her Circle,' Vol. I, p. 213. 



18 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

it is fair to add, has been by no means peculiar to the 
poet. It is held by many in theory. By others it has 
been illustrated in practice, not merely to the woeful 
discouragement of the would-be reader but to the com- 
plete effacement from human interest and regard of 
the one, however brilliant and fascinating he may have 
been, who has been made its victim. The prevalence 
of this belief in the desirability of treating great men 
with peculiar tenderness and reticence has had the 
result of turning much of modern biography into a 
portrayal of faultless prigs or tedious bores. Absten- 
tion from repeating details of almost any sort, but 
especially of those which might cause annoyance or 
pain, is naturally the right course to follow while the 
man is living. During that period respect for the ordi- 
nary decencies of life would suffice to prevent any but 
a thoroughly vulgar soul from intruding upon that 
privacy which every one, not guilty of a crime, has a 
right to demand for himself, that freedom from the 
revelation to the public of his personal characteristics, 
of his foibles and his failings. But in the case of the 
dead who are worthy of our admiration, there is no 
reason for this restraint. What we then have a right 
to demand is a full and faithful portrayal of the indi- 
vidual as he actually was. The desire we have to 
learn the exactest details of the lives of those whose 
characters we cherish and in whose achievements we 
take pride, is one of the most creditable characteristics 
of human nature. We never admire a really great man 
the less because we have come to know of his weak- 
nesses, his faults, one might almost add his vices. For 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 19 

these in fact we are often disposed to love him the 
more, if he is worth loving at all. Without a knowl- 
edge of such characteristics the picture of the man 
would be incomplete. The great poet of humanity put 
into the mouth of Othello a representation of the atti- 
tude which should be assumed by every biographer. 
Nothing should be extenuated; nothing should be set 
down in malice. A character that cannot bear to have 
his failings revealed is ordinarily not worth remember- 
ing; it may almost be said that his life is not worth 
living. There is doubtless such a thing as too much 
insistence upon petty personal details. Such a repre- 
sentation would detract as much from the verisimili- 
tude of the portrait as would their entire omission, and 
would perhaps detract even more. But that is the 
fault of the writer and not of the method. 

Tennyson's view of the subject was manifestly dif- 
ferent from Shakespeare's. It was the same as that 
of those friends of Johnson who deplored Boswell's 
biography as an unwarranted and loquacious revela- 
tion of every weakness and infirmity of the one whom 
they considered to be the greatest good man of the 
times. They called it treachery. Yet the reason why 
Johnson is so near to all of us and so dear to many of 
us is due to that very personal portrayal against which, 
had he been then living, Tennyson would have pro- 
tested fiercely. By many, Boswell's picture of the man 
exactly as he was could not be forgiven at the time. 
Fanny Burney tells us that Boswell came to her for 
some ''choice little notes," as he expressed it, upon 
the Doctor. She refused to help him and was much 



20 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

shocked at the course he purposed to take. "We have 
seen him long enough upon stilts," Boswell told her. 
*'I want to show him in a new light. Grave Sam, and 
great Sam, and solemn Sam, and learned Sam— all 
these he has appeared over and over. Now I want to 
entwine a wreath of the graces across his brow; I 
want to show him as gay Sam, agreeable Sam, pleas- 
ant Sam.'" How much wiser Boswell was than the 
wisest of his contemporaries the public realizes fully 
now and came soon to understand then. So did the 
publishers who had preferred to entrust the prepara- 
tion of the story of Johnson's career to the pompous 
Sir John Hawkins, whose formal and stupid biog- 
raphy was speedily extinguished by its rival. As a 
result of Boswell 's action we have the portrayal of a 
living, breathing man, not of a colorless character 
which has hardly the vitality of a wax figure. 

This aversion to the inevitable publicity which waits 
upon a career like his own was all the more unreason- 
able in Tennyson because the minutest revelation of 
the details of his life would have no other effect than 
to raise him still higher in the estimation of the world. 
Indeed if the character of any one prominent writer of 
his generation could be trusted to come out essentially 
unscathed from the severest scrutiny, it would be his. 
Such a scrutiny would reveal foibles and petty failings, 
and a number of peculiarities, not altogether pleas- 
ant, at times a roughness bordering closely upon rude- 
ness, at times a frankness of speech that was occasion- 
ally hard to distinguish from brutality, which, taken 

1 'Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay,' 1893, Vol, III, p. 299. 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 21 

together, would save him from the curse of being mis- 
taken for that most disagreeable of beings, a so-called 
saint. But it would bring out even more distinctly on 
account of these very blots the essential nobleness of 
his nature, his high sense of honor, his loftiness of 
spirit, and in particular his superiority to that com- 
mon weakness of authors in his freedom from envy 
and jealousy of rival poets, even at times when for a 
short period they seemed about to threaten his posi- 
tion before the public. In this respect none of his 
contemporaries would surpass him; very few could 
stand on a level with him. To him, if to any one, 
belonged what he said of the Prince Consort, that he 
wore ' * the white flower of a blameless life. ' ' 

With the sentiments he not merely entertained but 
felt deeply, it is quite impossible to conceive of Tenny- 
son as writing an autobiography. But the keen inter- 
est now taken in the details of the life of a great author 
has made up to a slight extent for the failure of the 
man himself to furnish much information directly. It 
is, however, no part of the plan of the present work to 
spend much time in tracing Tennyson's genealogy — 
genealogy which is sometimes the spacious but invari- 
ably the dark and dreary vestibule to the edifice of 
English biography. Ancestors in general are as unin- 
teresting a body of persons as those who concern them- 
selves with the lives of great men come to encounter. 
Still, a certain degree of importance attaches to the 
poet's immediate forbears, his father and his grand- 
father. Of this latter too little knowledge has been 
vouchsafed. In his early life, at least, George Tenny- 



22 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

son was a solicitor at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, 
near which his estate of Bayons Manor lay. He was 
elected a representative from the borough of Bletch- 
ingley in Surrey to the last Parliament of George the 
Third. This met in August, 1818, and was dissolved 
in February, 1820, on the death of the king. The 
grandfather, however, did not remain a member of it 
during its short existence, but early in 1819 accepted 
the Chiltern Hundreds. In the parliamentary register, 
his name is given not as George, but as George Clay- 
ton Tennyson. In the course of his life he accumu- 
lated a fairly large fortune. From the few accounts 
of him which have come down, one gets the impres- 
sion that he was possessed of a good deal more of 
ability than of amiability. For some as yet unex- 
plained reason, the property seems to have been 
destined from an early period to pass into the hands 
of the younger brother Charles instead of the elder. 
As the grandfather lived until 1835, he survived by 
more than four years his natural heir. At a compara- 
tively early period the poet's father must have been 
aware of the intention to disinherit him. As a sort 
of compensation for the intended alienation of the 
property, several preferments in the church were be- 
stowed upon him ; for those were the days when plural- 
ities prevailed. He was made rector of Somersby and 
Wood Enderby— two adjacent hamlets— and also in- 
cumbent of Benniworth and vicar of Great Grimsby. 
Still, the income derived from these combined livings 
could hardly have amounted to more than a small por- 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 23 

tion of the value of the inheritance of which he was 
deprived. 

Tennyson's father seems to have remained on 
friendly terms with the brother who had been selected 
to take his place. But his temperament, naturally 
melancholy, was little likely to be soothed by the ever 
present consciousness of what must have been in his 
eyes an undeserved unkindness, not to call it injury. 
In any country the treatment he received would give 
the impression of injustice. But in England where 
primogeniture has for centuries been invested with a 
peculiar sort of sanctity, the setting aside of what 
would be regarded by every one as his legitimate 
claims could hardly have failed to fret the spirit of 
the elder son almost beyond endurance. It was per- 
haps the disgrace of being passed over that was harder 
to bear than the loss of the property, though that 
involved as a consequence comparatively narrow cir- 
cumstances. He inwardly brooded over it. At times 
he fell into fits of despondency which cast a gloom 
over the whole family. No doubt this depression was 
to a certain extent constitutional and would have 
shown itself under any circumstances. Tennyson him- 
self inherited to some degree this tendency towards 
it, and was occasionally subject to it even at the height 
of his fame and fortune. But the treatment he re- 
ceived would naturally increase the despondent dis- 
position of the father. It preyed upon his spirits and 
probably impaired his health. Pretty surely it con- 
tributed its part towards making his life a compara- 



24 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tively short one; for he was but fifty-three years old 
when he died/ 

Nor apparently was the masterful grandfather con- 
tent with the exercise of parental power in diverting 
his estate from the eldest son. He seems to have 
assumed, or rather to have desired to assume, the right 
of directing the course in life of his son's sons. He 
sought to have them all enter the ministry. So far 
as can be gathered, their own preferences were not 
to be taken into consideration. His plans for their 
future were not, however, carried out very satisfac- 
torily. Of the seven grandsons — all of whom grew up 
to manhood — Charles was the only one who became a 
clergyman. Even in his case the choice of the profes- 
sion seems not to have been dictated by any desire to 
defer to the views or whims of the grandfather, but 
to carry out the wishes of his uncle, the Eeverend 
Samuel Turner of Caistor, to whose property he was 
early the expectant and finally the actual heir. We 
know indeed that this crusty and eventually gouty 
old grandfather was looked upon with anything but 
regard by the children of his eldest son. There was 
certainly nothing in his treatment of them which would 
predispose them to entertain feelings in his favor. 
Their attitude towards him is plainly indicated in 
letters as yet unpublished. 

The grandfather's vision of the future was no more 
trustworthy than his control over it was successful. 
At his request Alfred wrote a poem on the death of his 
grandmother. This took place in 1825. As a reward 

iBorn, December 10, 1778; died, March 16, 1831. 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 25 

the boy received a small sum of money. Certain 
prophetic words accompanied the gift. ''Here," said 
the grandfather, ''is half a guinea for you, the first you 
have ever earned by poetry, and take my word for it, 
the last. ' ' It did not fall to his lot to live long enough 
to witness the more than utter failure of his predic- 
tion in the fortune that was to come to the grandson 
from this then much derided source. Yet his life was 
sufficiently protracted for him to be made aware that 
as a prophet he could hardly be deemed a success. 
Tennyson's father took what turned out to be a far 
juster view. He recognized in the early productions of 
his son the promise of more enduring performance to 
follow. ' ' If Alfred die, ' ' he said on one occasion, ' ' one 
of our greatest poets will have gone." This was not 
the view held by the grim old grandfather. When told 
the closing year of his life that his grandson had pro- 
duced a volume of poems, he remarked, "I had sooner 
have heard that he had made a wheelbarrow. ' " 

Until he went to the university, far the larger pro- 
portion of Tennyson's childhood and youth was passed 
in the quietude of his native place and the region 
immediately adjacent. The only exceptions are the 
years he spent in the grammar school of the not far 
distant market town of Louth. Thither he repaired 
about Christmas, 1816. He was then but seven and a 
half years old. His brother Charles had preceded him 
at a similar time the year before. There Tennyson 
remained for the next four years. He left it at the 
Christmas term of 1820, and he left it gladly. Tenny- 

1 Alfred Church's 'The Laureate's Country,' p. 63. 



26 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

son never cared for the school at Louth, — ^it might be 
more accurate to say that he hated it. In fact, he liked 
it so little that when at that place in later life he would 
not go down the lane where it was situated. Nor did 
he believe that he got from it any benefit. There is lit- 
tle doubt that his opinion was correct. The truth is that 
the school was then of a type too generally prevalent 
in those days. The instruction was bad, the instructors 
made it worse. It was presided over by a man whom 
it would be a compliment to call a ruffian. Further- 
more, he was a ruffian of a peculiarly bad type — that 
is, a conscientious ruffian. In this respect he did not 
differ from many, perhaps most, of the headmasters 
then presiding over the English public schools; and 
like them he was held in high esteem, not only by his 
fellow citizens but by the students whom he flogged. 
The system of education pursued, like much of that 
then in vogue, was better fitted for the extinguishment 
of the abilities of the student than for their develop- 
ment. Everything had to be learned by rote. To 
understand anything or to be interested in anything 
was not a matter of moment. The school was further 
characterized by the methods prevailing in that old 
system of instruction in which the belief was firmly 
held and assiduously carried out in practice that noth- 
ing could be expected to stay permanently in a boy's 
brain until it had been effectively driven in by blows 
upon his body. There used to be in the schoolroom, 
and perhaps still is, a chair impressed with the govern- 
or's seal, which represents *'a master with a rod in 
his upraised hand and a boy crouching before him." 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 27 

It was symbolic of the method followed. Teachers 
walked up and down the room with implements of chas- 
tisement in their hands. Ears were boxed upon every 
pretext, knuckles were rapped. Legs and arms fur- 
nished constant temptation for the application of the 
cane. Who spares the rod hates the child, was the 
inscription in Latin posted in full view of the school- 
boys. Complaint could never be made by anyone that 
this proof of affectionate regard for himself and solici- 
tude for his welfare had not been lavished on him in 
abundance. In all these respects the school has now 
undergone a great change. It is not merely different 
in character, but it has come to cherish the memory of 
its most famous pupil who did not love it, and whom 
the man then in charge of it apparently did not love. 
A white marble bust of the poet stands in the room 
where as a boy he studied somewhat and suffered a 
good deal. A sleeping section in this building bears 
the name of the Tennyson dormitory. 

Nor further did Tennyson form any intimacies with 
his school companions. He pretty certainly cared for 
none. Mr. John Cuming Walters, who wrote a book^ 
on the homes and haunts of the poet in Lincolnshire, 
was informed by the only surviving fellow student of 
Tennyson at the grammar school that even there he 
never knew him to associate with the other lads or to 
take part in their sports. He and his brother Charles 
were inseparable companions. They walked together, 
they talked together exclusively. Both were recog- 
nized as possessing ability; but neither stood high in 

1 ' In Tennyson Land, ' 1890. 



28 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

their classes. Both were strong and stalwart; but 
neither engaged in athletic exercises nor was seen in 
the playground. From such associations or rather 
lack of associations, from such methods of instruction, 
from such a system of discipline, a change to their 
own home could hardly have been otherwise than wel- 
come. There it was that they spent the years which 
followed until they went to the university. Their 
father became their instructor. He would have been 
different from the usual run of fathers who assume 
that position towards their children if he had not been 
a rigorous one. He not merely taught them ; he made 
them study. There is little doubt that he did not err 
on the side of undue leniency. As one who knew him 
in those days observed, he was ''amazing sharp" with 
them. Still, it was not merely a profitable change from 
the methods of instruction pursued at the Louth school, 
it was far from being an unpleasant one in spite of 
general sternness and perhaps of occasional harshness. 
The father, too, was an excellent scholar ; at least that 
was the repute in which he was held. In addition, 
for the sake of those with whose education he intrusted 
himself, he gave up time and labor to render more 
perfect his knowledge of the studies he set out to 
teach. 

Here for the next seven years Tennyson spent his 
life. To one of his nature there were advantages in 
his confinement to this secluded region which out- 
weighed all its disadvantages. These did not consist 
in the fact that the boy was far removed from the 
temptations of the city. Such, though different in 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEAES 29 

kind, are no worse than those of the country. But he 
was removed from its distractions. Somersby was one 
of the quietest of the quiet wold villages. For this 
very reason it was in certain ways well fitted for the 
youth of a poet. Talent usually finds its most satis- 
factory development amid the activities of life where 
it is forced to come into constant contact and occa- 
sional collision with men. But the best nursing-place 
of genius is retirement, which with its attendant con- 
templation and reflection brings the mind into frequent 
communion with itself. 

Furthermore, the comparative solitude of his early 
years gave Tennyson ample time for reading and 
study during that period of his life when these occu- 
pations are not so important for the acquisition of 
knowledge they bring as for the influence they wield 
over the intellectual development. The absence of all 
disturbing elements contributed not merely to profi- 
ciency in learning but to the creation of a love for the 
highest literature. His father's library was an excel- 
lent one for its size. It was made up largely of the 
best books of the best authors in various languages. 
With them the children had ample leisure to familiar- 
ize themselves thoroughly. These indeed they were 
forced to read if they read anything; and they were 
fond of reading. Another advantage, therefore, of this 
remoteness from populous centers was that during the 
most impressionable period of life the boy's attention 
was not drawn away from the great works of the great 
literatures of the world by a swarm of ephemeral pro- 
ductions which in crowded cities are always brought 



30 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to tlie sight and fairly thrust themselves upon the 
notice of those who would ordinarily have remained 
unaware of their existence. 

In all these respects, therefore, the conditions which 
surrounded the youth of the poet were peculiarly 
favorable. Little there was in the scenes and sur- 
roundings of his boyhood or in its occurrences to dis- 
turb the monotony of existence which pervaded the 
community in which his early years were spent. Few 
opportunities existed for communication with the 
world outside, or for sharing in its activities or dis- 
tractions. The mail reached Somersby but two or 
three times a week. At the frequent summer resort 
of the family at Mablethorpe, there was at that time 
none at all, unless it came through some chance agency. 
Furthermore, in that sparsely settled hamlet there 
was but scanty society for the children outside of that 
which they found in their own home. The persons with 
whom they would most naturally associate dwelt at 
greater or less distance. Of some of them they saw, 
comparatively speaking, a good deal, if the conditions 
that prevented frequency of intercourse be taken into 
consideration. Still, the fact that such persons could 
only be seen at intervals naturally stood in the way 
of indulgence in many close intimacies. The children 
were in consequence largely thrown upon themselves 
for society. With books and talk about books, with 
poetry and music, they passed the days. They seem 
indeed to have grown up without any particular re- 
straint. Within limits they were allowed to do about as 
they pleased. As, however eccentric their conduct, 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEAES 31 

there was nothing vicious in their natures, this lack of 
restraint was productive of nothing but good. Accord- 
ingly, when freed from the confinement of their lessons, 
their tendency was to fleet the time carelessly as in the 
golden world. * ' They were always running about from 
one place to another," an old resident told Mr. Wal- 
ters, **and every one knew them and their Bohemian 
ways. They all wrote verses, they never had any 
pocket money, and they took long walks at night- 
time, and they were decidedly exclusive."^ 

Eeports naturally came to cluster about the uncon- 
ventional and self-absorbed ways of that one of the 
family who was destined to make its name famous. 
Stories there were of his carelessness in dress, or 
rather of his complete indifference to it; of his walk- 
ing again and again up and down the carriage-way, 
shouting and hallooing while carrying a book in his 
hand; of his wandering off by himself with his long 
hair, under no restraint from a hat, floating in the 
wind, and without a coat to his back, talking vehe- 
mently to himself, as he wandered along the sand hills 
that line the coast. This was not a course of conduct 
to meet the approval of the staid members of that 
rural community. There was a very general impres- 
sion among the rustic inhabitants of the region that 
the boy was daft. ''Many a time," Mr. Walters tells 
us, ''has Alfred been met miles away from home, hat- 
less and quite absorbed, sometimes only realizing his 
situation when his further journeying was prevented 

1 * In Tennyson Land, ' p. 40. 



32 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

by the sea.'" This habit of self -absorption, seen in 
childhood, never left the man. The life he led in his 
youth would also have naturally little effect in break- 
ing up that crust of shyness and reserve which was 
part of his nature. The habit of isolation which had 
distinguished him during his school life continued to 
a great extent after his return to his home. In truth, 
it continued during the whole of his career. Unques- 
tionably his self -absorption and reserve contributed at 
times to his personal unpopularity. It furnished 
sufficient ground for the intruder upon his retirement 
to complain that he had gone to see a lion and had 
found only a bear. 

Quiet however as was Somersby, it did not lack 
attractions of divers kinds to appeal to the impres- 
sionable nature of the boy. The region all about was 
covered with pretty hamlets, with copse woods, with 
roads lined with long avenues of elms, with embowered 
lanes ; with huge moats belonging to granges which had 
disappeared; with manor houses and their terraced 
gardens rejoicing in the gorgeous flowers with which 
that district of country abounded; with windmills 
on the wolds and water-mills in the valley; with fre- 
quent churches within whose walls lay cross-legged 
the monuments, as it was believed, of old crusaders. 
Northward of the little place rose to their greatest 
height the chalky cliffs of the Wolds. Mounting them 
was a steep and treeless pike which led to the market 
town of Louth. From it could be seen the long 
stretches of level land parallel with the coast over 

1 'In Tennyson Land,' p. 40. 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 33 

whose flat surface blew at times with tumultuous fury 
the fierce winds of the German Ocean. From the hills 
the eye commands the wide expanse of the marsh with 
its streams of channelled waters extending from hori- 
zon to horizon and moving sluggishly towards their 
outlet, spanned in all directions by the frequent bridge. 
Perhaps even more appealing to the poetic spirit 
was the long line of coast bounding the marsh on the 
east with its mounds of sand heaped up along the 
shore by the stormy waters of the North Sea, covered 
and held firm by the vegetation which had sprung up. 
All this region was familiar to the children of the 
household. It was the scene of much of their recrea- 
tion and play. There for them was the far-receding 
tide of Skegness and Gibraltar Point, which left at 
low water a long and wide expanse of sand in which 
the bare-legged brothers and sisters could disport 
themselves for hours. There, too, was the Mable- 
thorpe beach on which in stormy weather the plung- 
ing waves would break with thunderous roar, the tem- 
pestuous wind beating their crests into foam, driving 
the water up the sand dunes, and scattering far and 
wide the spray. The beauty of it and the might of it 
made an indelible impression upon the mind of the 
growing boy. The sea, indeed, was always Tennyson 's 
delight. To watch the onset of the ever restless waves 
and listen to their roar was for him a perpetual pleas- 
ure. The feeling began in childhood and remained 
until the end. In later life he remembered and re- 
corded the sentiments of his early years when he tells 
us he read in the Eevelation of St. John of the new 



34 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

heaven and the new earth which were to come when 
the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. 
*'And there was no more sea," concludes the Apostle. 
*'I remember reading that when a child," Tennyson 
wrote in 1848, * ' and not being able to reconcile myself 
to a future when there should be no more sea.'" 

The scenes and sights which early met his eyes are 
constantly reflected in his verse. Doubtless they lost 
something of their charm to the man himself as he 
grew in years. Yet as doubtlessly they became glori- 
fied in memory after he had bidden them a final 
farewell in order to share in the struggles of the world 
outside. He would then forget their discomforts and 
recall only their attraction. Still, when later he would 
return to them, they would not always be to him what 
he had fancied them to be. The moorland would be 
more barren, the shore would be more dreary. This 
different attitude of the mind at different times is 
shown in the well-known lines in which he described 
the fairy picture which the boy dreamed and the reality 
which the boy when grown to manhood came to see : 

Here often, when a child I lay reclined, 

I took delight in this fair strand and free; 
Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind. 

And here the Grecian ships all seem'd to be. 
And here again I come, and only find 

The drain-cut levels of the marshy lea, — 
Gray sand-banks and pale sunsets, — dreary wind, 

Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy clouded sea.^ 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 238. 

2 Lines contributed to ' The Manchester Athenaeum Album, ' 1850, in 
'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 161. 



TENNYSON'S EAELY YEAES 35 

It is indeed from incidental references in his own 
writings that we get the fullest insight into the 
thoughts and feelings of Tennyson's early life as well 
as the objects which met his gaze. One of the best, if 
not the best of the poems which made up the volume 
of 1830/ sets forth vividly the various scenes which 
were ever before his eyes. It is in the lines addressed 
to memory in which he paints those scenes which had 
impressed him peculiarly: 

Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside, 
The seven elms, the poplars four 
That stand beside my father's door. 
And chiefly from the brook that loves 
To purl 'er matted cress and ribbed sand 
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, 
Drawing into her narrow earthen urn, 

In every elbow and turn. 
The filter 'd tribute of the rough woodland. 

! hither lead thy feet ! 
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds 

Upon the ridged wolds, 
When the first matin-song hath waken 'd loud 
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, 
"What time the amber morn 
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. 

Perhaps even more vividly descriptive of the sights 
that were ever before the eyes of the boy are the lines 
in the same poem where he speaks of 

1' Poems, chiefly Lyrical,' 1830. 



36 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

... the high field on the bushless Pike, 

Or even a sand-built ridge 

Of heaped hills that mound the sea, 

Overblown with murmurs harsh, 

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 

Stretch 'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, 

Where from the frequent bridge. 

Like emblems of eternity. 

The trenched waters run from sky to sky. 

Of his early poetical tastes and of his early efforts 
in verse Tennyson, for once abandoning Ms usual 
reticence, has left us a slight record. Thomson was 
the first poet he knew. It was rather a singular choice 
for a child. When about ten or eleven years old, 
Pope's translation of the Iliad exercised over him the 
peculiar fascination which it has exercised over so 
many poets at about this period of life. Later he fell 
under the influence of Walter Scott, in whose style he 
wrote an epic of six thousand lines. At the age of 
fourteen he produced a drama in blank verse. This 
last may have survived the destruction which has over- 
taken the other pieces; but if so, it has not been 
printed. The taste, indeed, for poetical composition 
was not confined to him alone of the children ; it appar- 
ently prevailed in the whole Tennyson family. The 
father was himself addicted to the composition of 
verses. He never published them; but three of his 
sons brought out volumes of poems. Though only 
one of the number attained fame, there was not at the 
outset assurance that Alfred would be the one. Two 
others had their partisans. Charles, in particular, had 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEAES 37 

his advocates. FitzGerald held Frederick, the eldest 
of the brothers, as altogether superior. The same 
preference was shown by the Brownings. FitzGerald 
wrote to him on the subject in 1849.^ "You and he" — 
by he he meant Alfred — * ' are the only men alive whose 
poems I want to see in print," are his words. Later 
he renewed the same request. *'As you know," he 
wrote in 1850, "I admire your poems, the only poems 
by a living writer I do admire, except Alfred's."^ 
Whether in consequence of this urgency or not, Fred- 
erick Tennyson published in 1854 a volume of poems 
entitled 'Days and Hours.' It was received generally 
with respectful and in some quarters with enthusiastic 
mention. But whatever success it gained was confined 
to the critics. With the public it never met with any 
peculiar favor, and its author published nothing more 
till 1890, eight years before his death. But his later 
volumes were hardly more successful than his first. 
. Tennyson would have been different from the rest 
of the world, had he not at that time fallen under the 
sway of the overpowering personality of Byron. He 
did fall under it. The story has been told again and 
again since its first mention how profoundly the im- 
pressionable boy of fifteen was affected when the news 
reached the quiet Lincolnshire hamlet that Byron was 
no more; how full of consternation he was; how he 
went off by himself and wrote on the sand, ' ' Byron is 
dead. ' ' It was something almost impossible to credit. 

1 * Letters and Literary Eemains of Edward FitzGerald, ' Vol. I, 
p. 195. 

2 Ibid., p. 203. 



38 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

' ' I thought, ' ' he said, ' ' the whole world was at an end. 
I thought everything was over and finished for every 
one — that nothing else mattered."^ Tennyson came 
afterward for a time at least to share in the imdue 
depreciation which sooner or later is sure to over- 
take any reputation whether duly or unduly exalted. 
In truth, there was a period in Tennyson's life when 
he indulged in that cheapest of cheap criticism which 
styled the poetry of Byron rhetoric. This was a vague 
word used to express a vague idea that Byron is not 
profoundly reflective, as of course the speaker always 
is. At a later period Tennyson took a somewhat dif- 
ferent view. He believed that Byron's reputation 
would rise and that he would come to his own again. 
But under no circumstances could Tennyson have be- 
longed for any length of time to the school which Byron 
had founded, however much his spirit might have 
been affected by him while his influence was most pre- 
vailing. Both in feeling and expression the two were 
as far apart as the poles. No proper comparison can 
be made between natures which had so little in common 
in thought and utterance. The business of comparison 
between great writers is in general unsatisfactory but 
there are instances like the present when it assumes 
the dimensions of the absurd. 

With men who have genius for poetry, its existence 
is almost certain to disclose itself in early production. 
It perhaps hardly needs to be added that this par- 
ticular method of manifesting itself is very far from 
being confined to men of genius. The further general 

1 Mrs. Eitchie 's ' Eeeords of Tennyson, Buskin, Browning, ' p. 12. 



TENNYSON'S EARLY YEAES 39 

statement may be safely made that there is one respect 
in which poetical composition stands apart from other 
activities of the creative intellect. When once the pro- 
ducer has reached full maturity the quality of the prod- 
uct is little likely to be further improved with age. 
No rule indeed can be laid down which will not show 
exceptions. Still, it is rarely the case that he sur- 
passes after he has reached thirty the work produced 
before that time. Sometimes he fails to equal it. In 
the career of a poet the age between twenty-five and 
fifty is usually not only the most productive period, 
but it is also the period of most satisfactory produc- 
tion, frequently of the only satisfactory production. 
Ordinarily indeed the further limit might be restricted 
to forty. Poetry, in truth, is a literary growth which 
flowers early. 

This fact the writers of the Georgian era exemplify 
uniformly. The assertion made about them might be 
extended to nearly all the writers of every period. As 
this is a view unfamiliar to many, it may be well to add 
that the history of English poetry and poets bears con- 
clusive testimony to its truth. The exceptions are but 
few ; and even these are often more apparent than real. 
Chaucer, it may be, was one of them. But besides the 
possibility, if not probability, that a good deal of his 
first production has perished, he had laid upon him 
the burden of shaping and perfecting the vehicle he 
employed. Milton, again, did not produce his epic till 
late in life. But in his early years he had manifested 
his possession of poetic power of the highest grade. 
There is indeed every reason to believe that 'Paradise 



40 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Lost' would have been an even nobler work than it is, 
had it been written at a period of life when the fervor 
and fire of youth had not yet been impaired by age 
but merely strengthened and tempered by the judg- 
ment of maturer years. Dryden is, in fact, the only 
great modern poet whose first production gave little 
or no assurance of the position he was afterwards to 
attain ; but Dryden is more a poet- of the intellect than 
of the feelings. Far the largest share of great verse 
in English literature has been produced before its 
creators have reached the middle period of man's 
allotted life on earth. 

To this general rule of the excellence of early pro- 
duction by a great poet, Tennyson, as will be seen, is 
no exception, even if he be considered an exception to 
the decay which ordinarily follows it. 



CHAPTER II 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 

It was while the children were carrying on their 
studies at home, reading in a desultory fashion but on 
an extensive scale, that two of them — Charles and 
Alfred — during the years immediately preceding their 
entrance into Cambridge University, prepared a 
volume for the press. It was entitled 'Poems by Two 
Brothers.' When the book came out, the elder of the 
two was nineteen years old, the younger a little less 
than eighteen. 

It was in the latter part of April, 1827, that this 
work made its appearance. It was published by a 
firm of provincial booksellers, J. and J. Jackson of 
Louth, who were the owners of the copyright. On the 
title-page, however, the name of the London publish- 
ing house of W. Simpkin and R. Marshall took prece- 
dence. The book was prefaced by a so-called adver- 
tisement stating that the pieces which composed it had 
been written ''from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, not 
conjointly, but individually." It was further added, 
somewhat modestly, though boyishly, that if the work 
were subjected to "the microscopic eye of periodical 
criticism," a long list of inaccuracies and imitations 
would doubtless result as an outcome of the investiga- 
tion. But the authors went on to say, as did Byron in 



42 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the preface to his 'Hours of Idleness,' that they had 
passed the Rubicon and must necessarily encounter 
whatever fate the future had in store. In truth, this 
advertisement was manifestly inspired by Byron's 
preface to his first venture, though it is a little more 
than a dozen lines, while his extended to some pages. 
The spirit, however, was exactly the same ; the thought 
was the same, so far as it could be under the varying 
conditions. There can be no reasonable doubt that the 
author of the later brief preface had in his mind, while 
writing it, the earlier preface to the somewhat similar 
collection of boyish verses. 

The original volume is now one of the scarcest of 
books. It commands accordingly an exceptionally high 
price whenever a copy appears on the market. The 
poems contained in it are precisely one hundred and 
three in number. This number, however, includes one 
written by Charles, which serves as a kind of intro- 
duction to the whole work. The manuscript of the 
volume was later unearthed at the printing-office, and 
a reproduction of the original was brought out in 1893. 
In this reprint the initials of the writers were attached 
to the different pieces, so far as that could then be 
determined with reasonable certainty. Here it may be 
said that the designation of the authorship then made, 
agreed pretty generally with what had previously been 
reached by competent critics on the ground of internal 
evidence. In the reprint the authorship of forty-eight 
of the pieces was assigned to Charles Tennyson; that 
of forty-two to Alfred. The rest were in most 
instances left undetermined. Three, however, bore 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 43 

the signature of the eldest brother, Frederick Tenny- 
son. In the preface to the book, the number of his 
contributions is said to be four. Accordingly one of 
them seems to have been left unindicated. The long- 
est poem in the whole volume — 'The Oak of the 
North' — was of his composition. Nor is either one 
of the two others specified as his distinguished by 
brevity. In consequence of his participation in it, the 
book might fairly have been termed * Poems by Three 
Brothers. ' 

The later celebrity of Tennyson has caused an excep- 
tional degree of curiosity to spring up about this petty 
volume. There are indeed circumstances connected 
with its publication which invest it with peculiar inter- 
est, entirely dissociated from the matter it contains. 
Though the boys fancied they had been crossing a 
Rubicon, the audacity of the act did not awaken any 
surprise or astonishment in the rest of the world. Men 
did not learn of it at the time. They continued much 
later to remain in ignorance of the fact that any Rubi- 
con existed in Lincolnshire or that any one had crossed 
it. The work attracted no attention worth mentioning 
till late in the century. Three notices of it, however, 
certainly appeared. They are all more or less per- 
functory. One can be found in an advertisement of 
it taken from 'The Sunday Mercury' of April 22, 1827. 
This spoke of it as ''a work, which, under the most 
retiring title contains many exquisite pieces of verse. ' * 
Another criticism appeared in 'The Literary Chroni- 
cle and Weekly Review' of May 19 of this same year. 
This was one of several weeklies fated soon to die, 



44 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

or to be merged with others, which about that time 
were set on foot. The criticism is interesting as 
expressing no opinion in a genial way. ''This little 
volume, ' ' it said, ' ' exhibits a pleasing union of kindred 
tastes, and contains several little pieces of considerable 
merit. ' ' It quoted two poems in full. One of them was 
the piece beginning with the line 'Yon star of eve, so 
soft and clear,' and the other entitled 'God's Denun- 
ciations against Pharaoh-Hophra. ' The first of these 
is thought by some to be the unindicated fourth poem 
of Frederick Tennyson. 

The fullest and most genuinely cordial of these three 
notices was that contained in 'The Gentleman's Maga- 
zine.'^ It began with controverting the dictum of Dr. 
Johnson that no book was ever spared out of tender- 
ness to its author. "Why," it continued, "to such a 
volume as this should a test be applied which should 
have reference only to high pretensions 1 These poems 
are full of amiable feelings, expressed for the most 
part with elegance and correctness — are we to com- 
plain that they want the deep feeling of a Byron, the 
polished grace of Moore, or the perfect mastery of 
human passions which distinguishes Crabbe? We 
would rather express our surprise and admiration that 
at an age when the larger class of mankind have barely 
reached the elements of thought, so much of good feel- 
ing, united to the poetical expression of it, should be 
found in two members of the same family. The vol- 
ume is a graceful addition to our domestic poetry, and 
does credit to the juvenile Adelphi." 

1 Vol. XCVII, Supplement to Part I, p. 609. 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 45 

It was of course not to be expected that the work 
should attract even so much as the little attention it 
received. A volume of poems written by two boys 
whose names were not given on the title-page, and 
brought out by provincial booksellers in a small coun- 
try town, did not have any favoring adventitious cir- 
cumstances to contribute to its success. The collec- 
tion of pieces, though in a certain way remarkable, is 
not so very remarkable. Nor indeed is it so very 
unusual. Better work has been accomplished at this 
early age by poets who have turned out distinctly 
inferior to the greater of the two brothers. What has 
justly been regarded as the most wonderful thing 
about the volume is that not only were these young 
writers able to find men who were willing to print and 
publish it at their own expense but to pay in addition 
twenty pounds for the copyright. To the boys them- 
selves who never had at best more than a few pence 
in their pockets and usually nothing at all, the pos- 
session of so much money must have given them the 
feeling of having come into the possession of a veri- 
table Golconda. A goodly part of this sum, to be sure, 
was taken out in books. But the fact itself is justly 
regarded as one of the most astounding stories that 
can be told of the relations wliich have existed between 
authors and publishers. A prosaic explanation of this 
apparently inexplicable phenomenon has been given 
on the ground that the maternal grandfather of the 
two authors had been vicar of Louth. They them- 
selves had also been students in the grammar school 
of the place. Accordingly, though the grandfather 



46 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

had been dead long before, the interest of his person- 
ality would still continue to linger about the efforts of 
his grandsons. 

This explanation has been called very rational. All 
wonder therefore is to cease. If so, the rational intel- 
lect works very differently in Lincolnshire from what 
it does in the rest of the civilized world. In the latter 
it takes more than the sale of a work among a large 
circle of personal friends to repay the expense of pro- 
duction, even when the author has achieved some repu- 
tation already. The likelihood that it would have any 
effect of that sort in the circle which continued to 
remember a grandfather with a different name, who 
had been dead for several years, can hardly be reck- 
oned as justifying an experienced man of business in 
embarking upon any such venture. There may have 
been motives which influenced the Jacksons in the 
course they adopted which we have no means of ascer- 
taining. If it were, however, a business transaction 
purely, their generosity can be praised only at the 
expense of their sagacity. It is doubtful — it is perhaps 
right to add, it is not doubtful — that the receipts from 
the sale never paid them even for the price of the 
copyright, to say nothing of the other expenses of the 
publication. Fortunate it pretty surely was for the 
boys that they fell into the hands of provincial book- 
sellers. Had their first venture been with a London 
publisher, instead of receiving from him twenty 
pounds for the copyright, they would have been likely 
to have paid him instead more than twenty pounds for 
bringing out the book at all. Even then he would 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 47 

probably have lost money by the bargain. At any 
rate, he would have insisted that he had, which so far 
as they were concerned would have amounted to the 
same thing. 

The contents of the volume now come up for consid- 
eration. Like the work of most young and precocious 
writers belonging to the educated class, it was char- 
acterized by the display of that multifarious learning, 
in the exhibition of which boyhood delights. This 
was scattered over its pages with a lavish hand in 
the shape of mottoes, footnotes, and quotations. For 
most of these Alfred was responsible. Furthermore, 
like the work of all young writers, it reflected the 
authors who were their favorites. In their case it 
reflected the work of a great many authors, for the 
two brothers had been omnivorous readers, and read- 
ers, almost without exception, of the best literature. 
Especially was this true of the younger. Curious is 
the picture which the citations and remarks contained 
in the volume present of the tastes and occupations of 
the boys in that secluded Lincolnshire home. It is 
worth while indeed to give a fairly full, though not 
complete, list of the various authors with whom they 
were more or less familiar ; for it is manifest that the 
references and quotations are usually suggested by 
their own reading and not drawn from compendiums 
and conventional collections of '* elegant extracts." As 
was to be expected, the classic writers were strongly 
in evidence. Yet in Greek but two of these — Xenophon 
and Apollonius Rhodius — are referred to directly, 
though in the poems themselves familiarity with others 



48 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

is manifested. In Latin, however, there is a far larger 
display of authors and titles. They come too from 
both early and late periods of the literature. Lucre- 
tius, Terence, Sallust, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, 
Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial, ^lius Lamprid- 
ius, and Claudian are the names of those to whom 
direct reference is made or indebtedness professed. 
Even the Latin poems of Gray are drawn upon. 

In the modern tongues there is the same wealth of 
boyish erudition displayed. France furnishes quota- 
tions from Racine and Rousseau. Even Spanish 
authors are cited. But naturally the English writers 
present the most formidable array of names. Among 
the poets are found Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, 
Young, Mason, Beattie, Cowper, Ossian, Scott, Moore, 
and Byron. Among the prose writers are Addison, 
Burke, and Mrs. Radcliffe. The historians are repre- 
sented by Hume and Gibbon. There are quotations 
from less distinguished names which need not be con- 
sidered here. The works of the great oriental scholar. 
Sir William Jones, are, however, worth mentioning, 
because they seem to have been specially favored by 
the younger brother. But besides direct references, 
it is easy to detect in the poems themselves imitations 
of writers who are not specifically mentioned. It is 
a common remark that in this volume the influence of 
Byron is predominant. At the time the book came 
out, that result might surely have been anticipated; 
for in the minds of most Byron still continued to be 
the predominating force in English poetry. Within 
certain bounds, accordingly, it may be conceded that 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 49 

the statement is true. There is in the production of 
the younger brother a manifest imitation of particular 
poems of that author whose recent death had deepened 
the impression created by his brilliant career. This 
fact is especially noticeable in the case of certain con- 
templative pieces about the future life; and we may 
feel confident that the expedition of Nadir Shah into 
Hindostan would never have been written by Alfred 
Tennyson, had not the Assyrian previously come down 
like the wolf on the fold. But even here the influence of 
Byron is not exclusive. There are lines in the poem 
plainly reminiscent of the 'Lochiel's Warning' of 
Campbell. 

More marked, however, than the character of the 
subjects and the form of versification is the spirit 
which pervades several of these imitations. Especially 
is it noticeable in those written by the elder brother. 
In Byron the posing for effect which now strikes us as 
so unreal had something of a basis in genuine feeling 
on his part, or at any rate, in what he believed to be 
genuine feeling. But with his imitators the posing 
was the only thing that was genuine at all. In the 
case of these two writers it had about it under the cir- 
cumstances almost an air of the comic. It is perhaps 
natural for a boy to write gloomy poetry; to pretend 
to be blase before he has really known what pleasure 
is; to complain of blighted affections before he could 
have learned by experience the meaning of that pre- 
liminary process of acquiring them which we term 
falling in love; to find the grave casting its gloomy 
shadow over life at the very age when life is abound- 



50 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ing and fairly exultant in freshness and vigor. It 
seems for some reason to be always natural; at that 
particular period Byron had made it fashionable. 

But in the case of these young authors the unreality 
of this attitude is peculiarly unreal. The man of the 
world can hardly be expected to refrain from smiling 
when a boy of sixteen or seventeen begins to talk about 
the flowers of youth as having faded in spite of sor- 
row's tears. He might feel justified in laughing when 
a well-brought up lad, still a good way from having 
reached the end of his teens— whose greatest iniquity 
is likely to have been the twisting of a knocker from a 
door or ringing a bell and running away — when so mild 
a scapegrace as this should announce in all seriousness 
that it is a fearful thing for him to glance back over 
the gloom of misspent years and to have his mind 
filled with a thousand terrors as he sees advancing the 
shado\\y forms of guilt, and the vices of his life 
stand portrayed before him without a gleam of hope 
to cheer his old and aching eyes. This is pretty strong 
language for a veteran sinner ; but it is hopelessly out 
of place in the mouth of a boy who had never dreamed 
of committing a crime of even respectable turpitude, 
still less of perpetrating a deed of flagrant atrocity. It 
may be said that this is merely a dramatic picture. 
The writer accordingly is not to be held responsible 
for the views his characters express. But even in the 
case of these supposed characters the language has an 
air of unreality. The impression produced is that of 
feelings which no man had ever experienced in any 
form, and which these boys could never have conceived 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 51 

of, unless influenced by an imagination inspired by 
vague recollections of what they had read. 

But as has been intimated, this kind of writing char- 
acterizes the work of the elder brother rather than that 
of the younger. Throughout, this difference between 
the nature of their respective contributions had been 
recognized by the writers themselves. In their so- 
called advertisement they intimate that their produc- 
tions are not alike either in style or matter. This is 
apparent to even the casual reader. The difference 
between the poetry of the two authors extends not 
merely to the treatment of their subjects, but to the 
subjects themselves. This the very titles show. 
Persia, Mexico, The Fall of Jerusalem, Mithridates, 
Berenice, Antony and Cleopatra are the themes upon 
which the younger brother dilates. These are not the 
sort of subjects which interested Charles. Equally 
marked is the difference in the manner of their treat- 
ment. In that respect the productions of the two are 
as divergent as two streams forming a junction, which 
have come from entirely different regions and carry 
with them the traces of different soils. Charles had 
none of the intricate variations of verse or peculiari- 
ties of diction which, even at that early age, had begun 
to characterize the workmanship of his younger 
brother. His writing is usually simple, clear, and with 
an almost fatal tendency to the commonplace. Certain 
of his poems, in truth, such as 'Sunday Mobs' and 
'Phrenology,' are hopelessly prosaic. The influence of 
Byron was far more disastrously potent in his case 
than in that of Alfred. It is in his poems that the 



52 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

posing attitude is prominent. It is he who is racked 
by remorse for crimes never committed. It is he who 
looks back upon a career of blighted hopes and sinful 
deeds. One of his pieces is entitled 'In Early Youth 
I Lost my Sire.' As a result of this misfortune, he 
tells us, his soul had been torn by every blast of vice. 
By such lines as the following he not only harrows our 
feelings, but proceeds to enhance the extent of his 
misfortune by using italics : 

Why lowers my brow, dost thou enquire? 
Why burns mine eye with feverish fire? 
With hatred now, and now with ire? 
In early youth I lost my sire. 

As a matter of fact, we know that the Tennysons at 
this time had not lost their sire. Further, as a matter 
of theory, we are pretty safe in asserting that in minds 
ordinarily constituted no direful results of the kind 
here denoted follow from the loss of one's sire which 
would not have followed had the sire continued to 
exist. 

But it is to be said that in the pieces of Alfred 
Tennyson which here most distinctively indicate the 
features of his future poetry, there is even at this early 
day comparatively little trace of the influence of Byron. 
What there is of it, if not that of Byron at his best, 
is certainly not that of him at his worst. In several of 
the more important pieces which the younger brother 
contributed to this volume, the influence of the earlier 
poet can hardly be detected at all. Fully as noticeable, 
certainly, are the imitations, conscious or unconscious, 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 53 

of Scott and Campbell. Perhaps even more directly 
marked than any others are the passages that owe 
their existence to the poetry of Gray. There are lines 
which are obviously inspired by some of those con- 
tained in that writer's two Pindaric odes — ^inspired 
not in the sense of being borrowed but in that of being 
suggested. In truth, the wide reading of the younger 
brother comes out distinctly in his verse as contrasted 
with the little display of it by the elder, even if the 
latter had been as remarkable for its possession as his 
associate. The difference between the two in this par- 
ticular is another easy method of distinguishing the 
authorship of the respective pieces. But in truth, he 
who had become thoroughly steeped in Tennyson's 
later diction and method of expression would never 
experience much difficulty in designating a very large 
proportion of the pieces in this volume for which he 
was responsible. In these first writings of the poet 
occur not unfrequently the compound adjectives which 
later much distressed the critics of his early work. 
Even here are to be found such expressions, for exam- 
ple, as vapor-mantled, earth-imbedded, soul-enchant- 
ing, and greenly-tangled. In them, too, was exhibited 
that fondness for the archaic which led Tennyson later 
to revive words and phrases which had gone out of use, 
and for which he came constantly to be charged with 
affectation. Especially noticeable in the work of a 
writer, then only a young boy, is the use of the prefix 
y to the past participle. From all vagaries of this 
sort — if we choose to call them vagaries — ^his brother 
Charles was thoroughly free. 



54 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Though the younger brother's poems were fewer in 
number than those of the elder, as a consequence of 
the greater length of his pieces, he contributed to the 
joint volume much the larger proportion of lines. But 
as may be inferred from what has been said, far more 
did he surpass him in quality of verse. There has been 
a disposition to sneer at the work accomplished in his 
boyhood by the future poet. Tennyson himself was at 
one time disposed to depreciate it. He called it his 
''early rot." But when towards the close of his life 
he came to examine it, he admitted that it was better 
than he had thought. It has been no infrequent state- 
ment on the part of others — usually indeed of those 
who have not prejudiced their minds by reading this 
volume — that what appeared in it gives no promise 
whatever of his later achievement. The assertion 
indeed has sometimes been made by those who have 
professed to pay special attention to the work itself. 
We have been told in an article on the bibliography of 
Tennyson that ''we may safely assert that the most 
intense student of the Laureate might read this vol- 
ume through without the faintest suspicion of its 
alleged authorship. ' " In one sense this might be said 
of the early production of any great author. The art, 
what there is of it, of boys whose ages range anywhere 
between sixteen and twenty, is fairly sure to be imita- 
tive. It is not in such pieces that we expect to see any 
striking mastery of technique or display of profound 
thought or intense feeling, and above all of those char- 
acteristics which mark peculiarly the expression of 

1 ' Fortnightly Eeview, ' Vol. II, p, 386. 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 55 

the mature man as contrasted with the imitation con- 
sciously or unconsciously practised by the immature. 
It may be remarked, however, that the suspicion of a 
very intense student of Tennyson might be aroused 
by finding an occasional line in the early poems essen- 
tially reproduced in his later works. 

This fact, however, carries but little weight when we 
come to discuss the nature and value of the poetry. 
The thorough commonplaceness of Tennyson's work 
in this volume has been insisted upon by men who can 
hardly plead, who at least ought not to plead, that 
impartiality of judgment which arises from ignorance. 
So acute a critic as the late Andrew Lang took the 
ground in one of his essays that the early work of great 
poets is never better than that of ordinary men — a 
thesis pretty difficult to maintain in the face of certain 
writers, such, for example, as some of Cowley's pieces 
written in boyhood, or Milton's 'Nativity Ode,' or 
Pope's 'Essay on Criticism.' To sustain his view he 
cited among others the case of Tennyson. ''There 
is no promise at all," he wrote, "in the Tennysons' 
'Poems by Two Brothers.' "^ This is negative dis- 
paragement; but for positive failure to exhibit the 
least sign of literary judgment we can have recourse 
to another critic. Of the 'Poems by Two Brothers' 
Stopford Brooke tells us that "they are without a 
trace of originality, force, or freshness — faded imita- 
tions of previous poets, chiefly of Byron; or, where 
not imitative, full of the futile modesty of boyhood, 

1 On ' Genius in Children, ' in ' North American Eeview, ' January, 
1897, Vol. CLXIV, p. 36. 



56 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which would fain be vain but does not dare ; made up 
partly of bold noise and partly of sentimentality, accu- 
rately true to the type of English poetry between the 
death of Shelley and the publication of the Tennyson 
volume of 1830." It is further remarked that '4t is 
one of the literary puzzles of the world that certain 
great poets, as, for example, Shelley, and here Tenny- 
son, write trash in their boyhood ; and within a year or 
two step on to a level of original power. ' '^ Examples 
such as these show that in the production of foolish 
criticism no limitations are imposed by age. 

This is not to say that Tennyson's productions in 
the 'Poems by Two Brothers' are to be regarded as 
highly remarkable. It would be an assumption not 
justified by the character of the pieces found in this 
volume to maintain that they gave certain indication of 
the advent of a great poetic genius. Had not the 
promise here disclosed been followed by great per- 
formance, these poems would have remained in the 
oblivion into which they speedily fell; or rather into 
the oblivion into which they were born, outside of the 
immediate circle of friends or relatives who were prob- 
ably their sole readers. But to say that there is no 
promise at all shows either ignorance of their content 
or a wilful closing of the eyes to the fact. There are 
several of the younger poet's pieces which rW"- far 
from being poor productions in themselves. "I did 
not expect to find them so good as they really are," 
said Frederick Tennyson in the passage of a letter 

1 ' Tennyson, His Art and Eelation to Modern Life, ' by Stopf ord 
Augustus Brooke, 1894, p. 55. 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 57 

quoted in the reprint of 1893. His praise seems to have 
been given to all of them ; that it has sufficient warrant 
in the case of Alfred may be shown by a few extracts. 
The first consists of two stanzas taken from a poem 
entitled 'The Vale of Bones.' It is the picture of a 
valley between mountains strewn with the bones of 
those who had fallen in battle : 

I knew thera all — a gallant band, 
The glory of their native land, 
And on each lordly brow elate 
Sate valour and contempt of fate, 
Fierceness of youth, and scorn of foe. 
And pride to render blow for blow. 
In the strong war's tumultuous crash, 
How darkly did their keen eyes flash ! 
How fearlessly each arm was rais 'd ! 
How dazzlingly each broad-sword blaz 'd ! 
Though now the dreary night-breeze moans 
Above them in this Vale of Bones. 

"What lapse of time shall sweep away 
The memory of that gallant day, 
When on to battle proudly going. 
Your plumage to the wild winds blowing, 
Your tartans far behind ye flowing, 
Your pennons rais'd, your clarions sounding. 
Fiercely your steeds beneath ye bounding. 
Ye mix'd the strife of warring foes 
In fiery shock and deadly close? 
What stampings in the madd'ning strife. 
What thrusts, what stabs, with brand and knife, 
What desp'rate strokes for death or life. 
Were there ! What cries, what thrilling groans, 
Re-echo 'd thro ' the Vale of Bones ! 



58 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

No one can well deny the force or fire of this passage, 
when we take into account that it comes from a boy of 
sixteen or seventeen. It assuredly indicated the possi- 
ble, though of course not certain, development of poetic 
power of no mean order. This promise is brought out 
more unmistakably in the following stanza from the 
poem entitled 'Antony to Cleopatra': 

Then when the shriekings of the dying 

Were heard along the wave, 
Soul of my soul ! I saw thee flying ; 

I follow 'd thee, to save. 
The thunders of the brazen prows 

O'er Actium's ocean rung; 
Fame's garland faded from my brows, 

Her wreath away I flung. 
I sought, I saw, I heard but thee ; 
For what to love was victory? 

Of an entirely different cast from either of these is 
the poem entitled 'Persia.' In it is depicted the grief 
of the founder of the empire could he have foreseen 
its fall. In so doing the writer describes in the follow- 
ing lines the extent of the domain whose fate he 
bewails : 

To view the setting of that star. 
Which beam'd so gorgeously and far 
'er Anatolia and the fane 
Of Belus, and Caister's plain. 

And Sardis, and the glittering sands 

Of bright Pactolus, and the lands 
Where Croesus held his rich domain: 
On fair Diarbeck's land of spice, 
Adiabene's plains of rice, 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 59 

"Where down th' Euphrates, swift and strong, 
The shield-like kuphars bound along; 
And sad Cunaxa's field, where, mixing 

With host to adverse host oppos'd, 
'Mid clashing shield and spear transfixing, 

The rival brothers sternly clos'd. 
And further east, where, broadly roll'd, 
Old Indus pours his stream of gold; 
And there where, tumbling deep and hoarse, 
Blue Ganga leaves her vaccine source; 
Loveliest of all the lovely streams 
That meet immortal Titan's beams, 
And smile upon their fruitful way 
Beneath his golden orient ray: 
And southward to Cilicia's shore. 
Where Cydnus meets the billows' roar, 
And where the Syrian gates divide 
The meeting realms on either side; 
E 'en to the land of Nile, whose crops 

Bloom rich beneath his bounteous swell, 

To hot Syene's wondrous well. 
Nigh to the long-liv'd J5thiops. 
And northward far to Trebizonde, 

Renoun'd for kings of chivalry, 
Near where old Hyssus, from the strand. 

Disgorges in the Euxine sea — 
The Euxine, falsely nam'd, which whelms 

The mariner in the heaving tide. 
To high Sinope's distant realms. 

Whence cynics rail'd at human pride. 

These lines are not merely remarkable for the mastery 
of historical and geographical detail they exhibit but 
for the skill manifested in marshalling an almost Mil- 
tonic wealth of nomenclature. It is easy to pick out 



60 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

flaws ; but a boy of sixteen or seventeen who had come 
into the possession of the knowledge here displayed, 
and had the ability to couch it in such vivid verse, has 
achieved something of a distinctly higher grade than 
ordinary and even excellent versifiers could produce at 
a mature age.^ It would be no difficult matter to add 
other extracts as significant. These are enough, how- 
ever, to show that the undeveloped Tennyson is already 
indicated. There is in them distinct poetic promise, 
though one may be perfectly willing to concede that 
there has been much poetic promise in the world fully 
equal to it which has never ripened into performance. 
It may be well to give some further information 
about this volume, though this concerns bibliography 
rather than literary history. The manuscript of the 
poems chanced to be saved from the destruction which 
usually overtakes the writings of unknown authors 
after their works have once gone to the press. On 
December 23, 1892, it was sold in London by auction.^ 
It brought the sum of £480. Included in the sale, how- 
ever, was a copy of the printed volume, then com- 
manding the price of about thirty pounds in the 
market, and also the receipt for the twenty pounds 
paid by the Jacksons for the copyright. The manu- 
script itself was sold a few months later to an Ameri- 
can firm for £420.^ In this country it remained for a 
while, but before it was disposed of here, it was re- 

1 "This is not perfect poetry," says Dr. Van Dyke (in 'The Poetry 
of Tennyson'), after quoting this passage from this poem; "but it is 
certainly strong verse. It is glorified nomenclature. Milton himself 
need not have blushed to acknowledge it. ' ' 

2 ' Athenaeum, ' December 31, 1892, p. 922. 

s' Notes and Queries,' June 3, 1893, p. 426, 



POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 61 

turned to England and found a proper resting-place 
in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge/ Exami- 
nation of the manuscript showed that all its contents 
had for some reason not been published. To the 
reprint of the original edition made in 1893, four short 
poems were added which had been omitted from the 
first edition. 

It is not a matter of particular consequence, but it 
is proper to remark in passing that this volume of the 
two brothers has not unfrequently been spoken of in 
recent times as belonging to the year 1826 instead of 
1827. A statement to that effect has been made, for 
instance, in some biographies of the poet. In other 
works a sort of compromise has been arranged between 
the actual and the supposed fact by designating the 
volume as that of 1826-1827. For the error Tennyson 
himself was originally responsible. Strictly speaking, 
a writer ought to know better than any one else just 
when a book of his own came out. Rarely is it the 
case, however, that he can be trusted implicitly. 
Least of all is it true when he has produced a long 
succession of works. In this instance assuredly the 
author cannot be trusted. The truth is that Tennyson 
came to confound in later life the circumstances con- 
nected with the dating of his second independent vol- 
ume of poetry with those of the volume which he had 
brought out in conjunction with his brother. The 
former appeared early in December, 1832. It was 
postdated, however, 1833. Lapse of time with its 
unfailing concomitant of a treacherous memory led the 

1 Jfcid., September 9, 1893, p. 218. 



62 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

poet to transfer to the earlier work what was true of 
the later. The 'Poems by Two Brothers' came out in 
April, 1827. The so-called advertisement prefixed 
bears the date of the preceding March. 'The London 
Daily Chronicle ' of April 27, announces it as that day 
published. It is advertised in 'The Literary Gazette' 
of April 21 and April 28, though it does not appear in 
its list of new books until the number for May 12. 
This is sufficient evidence, though more could be easily 
supplied. 



CHAPTEE III 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 

It was about ten months after their poetical venture 
that Charles and Alfred Tennyson went to Cambridge 
University. Both were matriculated at Trinity Col- 
lege. To be exact, the date was February 20, 1828. 
There they had been preceded by their eldest brother 
Frederick. He had gone up from Eton where he had 
distinguished himself as a most successful writer of 
Greek and Latin verse. At Cambridge he had already 
made a still further reputation for himself by gaining 
the university medal for the best Greek poem. 

With most persons poetically inclined a little mathe- 
matics goes a long way, and Cambridge had then long 
been and still continued to be the most mathematical 
of universities. Excellence in that subject was essen- 
tial to the attainment of the highest honors. Yet 
never has it fallen to the lot of any institution of 
learning — at least in English-speaking lands — to have 
on its rolls so large a number of illustrious men of 
letters, most of whom knew little of that special sub- 
ject and some of whom hated it. From this most 
mathematical of universities had been graduated be- 
fore Tennyson was born a large majority of the great- 
est poets of England. In literature, there was to be no 
falling off in the period which immediately followed. 



64 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

In the course of the third decade of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, particularly, appeared at the university a most 
remarkable body of men. In the early part of it 
Macaulay was graduated. During his first residence 
he expressed his feelings about the studies pursued in 
a letter to his mother signed "your most miserable 
and mathematical son." In the middle of this same 
decade Bulwer and Winthrop Mackworth Praed were 
prominent; and a little later Frederick Denison 
Maurice, John Sterling, and shortly after them, 
Charles Duller. But towards its end came together 
in the university, and, as it chanced, mainly in a single 
one of its colleges, a group of men each of whom was 
to achieve more or less distinction in the period which 
was to follow. Two of them have attained eminence 
for all time ; but every one of the others has played no 
inconspicuous part in the intellectual life of the nine- 
teenth century. 

The two greatest never completed the course. 
Tennyson remained but three years, Thackeray but 
one. Yet there were several others then congregated 
there who were destined to be of note and force in 
their generation. Two of the now less known to the 
public of the circle of which the poet became a mem- 
ber were the future preacher, William Henry Brook- 
field, whom Thackeray described as Frank Whitestock 
in 'The Curate's Walk'; and the future barrister and 
journalist, George Stovin Venables, upon whose char- 
acter — not upon whose career — the same novelist is 
generally asserted to have modelled the Warrington 
of *Pendennis.' However that may be, he has the dis- 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 65 

tinction of having contributed one cautionary line to 
*The Princess." Another one of the number was 
Eanglake, not so likely to be remembered hereafter by 
his history of the Crimean War, weighted down with 
infinite information on the pettiest topics, as by that 
brilliant book of travels, the glory of which is that it 
gives no information at all. Both Thackeray and 
Kinglake belonged to Trinity ; but with neither of them 
at that time could Tennyson's acquaintance have been 
more than nominal, if it even existed. Nor did he then 
consort with FitzGerald, with whom later his relations 
were to become specially intimate. Furthermore, it 
was not till the close of his stay that he met Trench, 
the future archbishop of Dublin. To his more imme- 
diate circle of associates, besides the two already men- 
tioned, belonged Henry Alford, the future dean of 
Canterbury; Charles Merivale, the future historian of 
the Roman Empire ; James Spedding, the future editor 
of Bacon ; Richard Monckton Milnes, the future Lord 
Houghton; and last, though so far as the poet is 
concerned, of greatest importance, Arthur Henry 
Hallam. 

It is clear that at the outset there was much in his 
surroundings which was little to the poet 's taste. The 
high position accorded to mathematics in the course 
of study would not be likely to recommend either the 
institution or those seeking its honors to the regard of 

1 This was the second line of the speech of ' The Princess ' at the 
beginning of Canto IV: 

There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound. 



66 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

one who was devoted above all things else to literature. 
A letter written to an aunt early in his university 
career reveals his dissatisfied state of mind. ' ' I know 
not how it is," he says, **but I feel isolated here in 
the midst of society. The country is disgustingly 
level, the revelry of the place so monotonous, the stud- 
ies of the university so uninteresting, so much matter 
of fact. None but dry-headed, calculating, angular 
little gentlemen can take much delight in them."^ 
Fortunately these feelings did not continue. Still it is 
evident that while Tennyson was in his way an earnest 
student, it was not in the way which led to college 
honors. His acquaintance, however, was not confined 
to the dry-headed, calculating, angular little gentlemen 
of whom he seemed at first to think the university was 
made up. These adjectives would be especially inap- 
plicable to the group of young men already mentioned 
with whom he became intimate, all of whom were pro- 
foundly affected by the feelings of literary and politi- 
cal unrest which were then dominant everywhere. 

For the Tennysons came up to Cambridge and con- 
tinued to remain there during the period of excite- 
ment and agitation which was then prevailing over 
England and the Continent. While it lasted not only 
were kings dynastic and literary sent into exile, but 
thrones of every kind were to a greater or less extent 
shaken. More than its sister university, Cambridge 
felt stirring in itself the intellectual revolt which 
sought to dethrone the old divinities and to substitute 
for them new gods. Two men, in particular, both con- 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 34. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 67 

nected with the educational staff of Trinity College, 
were regarded as the prophetic interpreters of the 
new creed. One was Julius Charles Hare, who was 
classical lecturer from 1822 to 1832. The other was 
Connop Thirlwall, the future historian and bishop of 
St. David's. At the time of Tennyson's residence 
these two were engaged in the translation of Niebuhr 's 
'History of Rome,' This work was then regarded by 
many as of a revolutionary character and as having a 
tendency to promote skepticism. Of the two. Hare 
had much the more influence with the members of the 
younger set in whose brains were fermenting the new 
literary and social ideas which were in the air. With 
many of them he was on terms of intimacy. As he was 
by nature extravagant both in his likes and dislikes, 
he was fairly sure to be found an ardent friend or a 
furious foe. One result of this temperament was that 
he was little able to form a trustworthy estimate of the 
comparative value of persons or productions. An 
incidental remark of his made in all sincerity fur- 
nishes a striking illustration of this critical wayward- 
ness. In 1832 he was at Munich. There he saw Schel- 
ling. That philosopher, he added, ''now that Goethe 
and Niebuhr are gone, is mthout a rival the first man 
of the age, — I know not who is the second. ' '^ It is not 
necessary to quarrel with this estimate of Schelling. 
It was not an unnatural view for a metaphysician to 
take. It is the junction of Goethe and Niebuhr that is 
noteworthy. 

The influence of Hare was potent with the little 

1 ' Memorials of a Quiet Life, ' Vol. I, p. 458, 



68 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

group of friends who surrounded Tennyson. The stu- 
dents who were under his sway frequently did more 
than imbibe his views ; they carried them further, and 
sometimes carried them into action. Byron for more 
than a dozen years had dominated the realm of poetry. 
To him all aspirants for fame had bent the knee. The 
supremacy of this autocrat these revolutionists now 
proceeded to assail. Hare in particular had early 
become one of the most thoroughgoing advocates of 
Wordsworth. He had upheld his supremacy at a time 
when many were disposed to deny him poetical merit 
at all. Along with his passionate admiration of the 
poet was mingled an unqualified contempt for the intel- 
lectual qualities of those who had of him an opinion 
different from his own. It sometimes manifested 
itself characteristically. In November, 1829, a debate 
took place at the Cambridge Union on the comparative 
merits of Byron and Wordsworth. The friends of the 
latter poet were largely outnumbered. There were but 
twenty-three votes in his favor. This number Hare 
declared to be altogether too large. There were not, 
he said, twenty-three persons in the room who were 
worthy to be Wordsworthians. 

It was into a society of this sort, stirred by the re- 
volt then going on in literature and life, that the 
Tennysons were thrown. They were warmly wel- 
comed. Little as the volume of 'Poems by Two 
Brothers' had been read or circulated, its existence 
could not have been unknown to the small circle of 
which they had become members. Their reputation 
had preceded them. In that boyish world it could 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 69 

hardly fail to give a certain dignity to the newcomers 
that they could look back already upon a past of 
authorship. From incontestable evidence we know 
that in these college days poetical fame was predicted 
for both the brothers, though even then the superior- 
ity was generally accorded to the younger. Charles 
Merivale's father had been a friend of George Clay- 
ton Tennyson in their own university days. In Octo- 
ber, 1826, he wrote to his son, advising him to seek 
the acquaintance of the son of his old fellow student.^ 
The person meant was Frederick. But in April, 1828, 
about three months after the arrival of the other 
brothers, Merivale wrote to his father about meeting 
not the one who had been recommended to him, but the 
younger of the two new arrivals. *'I have got," he 
said, *'the third of the Tennysons in my room, who is 
an immense poet, as indeed are all the tribe — was the 
father so?"^ This is but one of many indications of 
the opinion entertained in the university as to the 
respective merits of the three and of the superiority 
generally accorded to Alfred. He was the only one 
of them selected to become a member of a distinctly 
exclusive society, which both then and later played an 
important, though in some ways a designedly incon- 
spicuous part in the intellectual life of Cambridge 
University. As indirectly it had a good deal to do 
with the growth of Tennyson's reputation, some 
account of it is desirable. 

1 ' Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, ' 
Oxford, 1898, p. 130. 
2 Ibid., p. 136. 



70 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

The title of the organization was the Conversazione 
Society. By that it was officially known. But as its 
number was ordinarily limited to twelve, the term 
Apostles was given to it in derision. As is not unusual 
in such cases, the nickname was accepted, by those to 
whom it was applied, as a title of honor. Were they 
not commissioned to preach to the sons of men dwell- 
ing in outer darkness new truths in regard to literature 
and religion, the cultivation of a loftier philosophy, a 
purer poetry, higher ideals in life and letters? The 
society was made up of undergraduates or of those 
who, having taken the degree of bachelor of arts, were 
still continuing to pursue their studies at the univer- 
sity. They were consequently young men who were 
brought together by common sympathies, common 
tastes, common aspirations. Their minds were bub- 
bling over with the new ideas with which the age was 
fermenting. They were disposed to scrutinize with 
severity, or rather to treat with contempt, the views 
generally held by the large majority of men, even of 
educated men, in regard to books and authors. All the 
fine audacities of youth in speculation, all its intense 
partisanship in matters of literature were repre- 
sented by members of this organization who had the 
most abiding confidence in the correctness of their 
opinions on any subject or on all subjects. *' The world 
is one great thought, and I am thinking it" was the 
way in which one of their number — John Mitchell 
Kemble — ^indicated their state of mind.^ Joined with 
this was a lofty scorn of the intellectual capacities of 

1 * Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale, ' p. 99. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 71 

those who did not share in their opinions and beliefs. 
The term Philistine had not yet been imported from 
Germany to designate the members of the shop- 
keeping class who cared nothing for high ideals in life 
or literature. Still less had the word come to be per- 
verted to stigmatize those whose views chanced to 
differ from one's own. But though the designation 
was absent, the spirit which had generated it was 
present and active. For the characterization of the 
degraded beings who had not attained their own lofty 
level, they borrowed another word from the German. 
They designated them as Stumpfs — that is, ' ' stupids. ' ' 
Along with this poor opinion of the men of their 
own university Avho did not sympathize with their 
views was an even more contemptuous estimate of all 
who had, in their opinion, the misfortune to belong to 
the sister university. For them they professed un- 
measured contempt. This feeling seems to have been 
pretty general in the Apostolic band. They based 
their justification for this state of mind upon the long 
line of illustrious men of which Cambridge had been 
the mother, though not always regarded by these sons 
as the cherishing mother ; and the comparative barren- 
ness in this particular of Oxford. Especially was this 
true of those who had attained distinction in verse. 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Pope had received no uni- 
versity training; but of the other poets of the first 
class Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Gray, Coleridge, 
Wordsworth, and Byron were all graduates of Cam- 
bridge. Besides these, there too had been educated no 
small number of authors of inferior grade, such, for 



72 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

instance, as Herrick, Herbert, Waller, Suckling, 
Crashaw, and Cowley. In consequence of this pre- 
ponderance of eminent writers a sense of intellectual 
superiority came to prevail in those days and more 
than once made amusing exhibition of itself. It lasted 
indeed in members of the Apostolic band and their 
associates long after the period had arrived for out- 
growing this particular form of folly. In December, 
1840, Brookfield wrote to his wife about one of the 
undergraduates of the sister institution. ''I found 
him very oxford," he said, — ^' which I can't for the 
life of me help spelling with a little o — and indeed I 
utterly despair of ever seeing a half-penny worth of 
vigorous and apprehensive mind from that precious 
school of gentility, and I never speak to one of her 
graceful children without thinking of Venables' . . . 
modest remark — ' I often wonder what we have done to 
deserve being gifted as we are so much above those 
cursed idiotic oxford brutes.' "^ In a later letter he 
commented on the unconscious good faith with which 
Venables had given utterance to this opinion. "His 
mind," he said, "not in the least engaged with the 
fact of Cambridge superiority — which was far too 
matter-of-course a thing to dwell upon — but solely with 
speculation upon the cause ... I believe that Oxford 
minds are not considered to have any value but such 
as arises (as in Turnspit dogs) from their extreme 
rarity. ' ' 

Such was the sort of spirit that prevailed among the 
members of this so-called Apostolic band. The birth- 

1 'Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle,' Vol, I, pp. 59-60. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 73 

place of the organization had been St. John's College. 
Thriving after a fashion for a while in its original 
home, it gravitated at length to Trinity, where it 
began an altogether new life. Frederick Denison 
Maurice, who had entered that college in 1823, is 
credited with being its second founder. **The effect," 
wrote Arthur Hallam to Gladstone in 1830, ''which 
he" — that is, Maurice — "has produced on the minds 
of many at Cambridge by the single creation of that 
Society of the Apostles (for the spirit, though not the 
form, was created by him) is far greater than I can 
dare to calculate, and will be felt, both directly and 
indirectly, in the age that is upon us."^ It is mani- 
fest from this and various similar expressions by 
others that the members of the organization had no 
poor opinion of themselves. It was their intention and 
expectation to uplift and regenerate society. Their 
mission, said one of their number, was to enlighten 
mankind upon things spiritual and intellectual. They 
possessed, too, in its fulness, that preliminary to all 
success in shaking the world, an absolute confidence 
in their ability to shake it. Necessarily they had a set 
of idols to whom they bowed down reverentially. Cole- 
ridge was their principal divinity in metaphysics, 
Wordsworth in poetry. The reign of the latter was 
not wholly absolute. In it Shelley and Keats were 
coming to have a recognized position. It was by the 
men of this little band that the 'Adonais,' the monody 
of the former on the death of the latter, printed at 
Pisa in 1821, was first reprinted in England in 1829. 

I'Life of Frederick Denison Maurice,' Vol. I, p. 110. 



74 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

About this society hung all that air of mystery 
which constitutes a peculiar charm of itself to those 
who are in the period of intellectual immaturity. 
Reticence in regard to it was carried to the extremest 
extreme. It cared not to flaunt itself in the light of 
day. It exhibited no visible symbols of its possession 
of a being. It sought secrecy, at that time at least, not 
to inspire curiosity or interest, but for the sake of 
secrecy itself. Its very existence was a matter of 
deduction ; it could not be said to be positively known. 
So far were its members from being desirous of prid- 
ing themselves upon their connection with it, they 
labored to conceal the fact that they belonged to it. 
Your most intimate friend might be one of the sacred 
band ; but you did not know it, you merely inferred it. 
You observed that he was familiar wdth celebrities no 
longer in residence and no longer having any direct 
relations to the university. You saw that on Saturday 
evenings he was always engaged somewhere, though 
you had no means of ascertaining where. The silence 
which guarded the existence of the organization was 
never broken by him in the days of his active member- 
ship. 

To this society Arthur Hallam and Tennyson were 
elected on January 24, 1830. The conviction of 
Alfred's superiority to his two brothers is evinced by 
this choice of him as one of the Apostles. He seems 
to have been hardly a faithful member. In the account 
of this organization given by Leslie Stephen he repre- 
sents that according to his brother's report — which 
may have come down by tradition — Tennyson "had to 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 75 

leave the Society because he was too lazy to write an 
essay. "^ Whatever may be the truth as to the reason 
assigned, there seems little doubt that he failed to 
respond, when it became his duty to produce one at the 
appointed time. It was not likely, however, to have 
been from laziness. The failure was in all probability 
due to his constitutional shyness or to dissatisfaction 
with what he had prepared. Whatever was the real 
reason for cutting short, if the tradition be true, his 
direct connection with the society, his hold upon its 
members was not in the least degree impaired either 
at the time or afterward. He received indeed from his 
associates then in the organization and from their 
successors what came to be powerful support in the 
most trying days of his career. 

There can indeed be no doubt as to the profound 
personal impression made by Tennyson upon the bril- 
liant group of his college contemporaries. The evi- 
dence to this effect is abundant in quantity and pro- 
nounced in its positiveness. Long before he had 
accomplished anything which could with propriety be 
termed great, he was so considered and so styled by 
no small number of the circle to which he belonged. 
Whether the prophecy of his future fame was due to 
a far-sighted prescience begot of the deep insight 
which springs from intimate personal acquaintance, or 
whether it was merely the enthusiastic devotion of 
friendship which was for once justified in its faith by 
the conformity of later fact, certain it is that the belief 

1 ' The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, ' by his brother Leslie 
Stephen, 1895, p. 100. 



76 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

that he was to be one of the leading poets of the cen- 
tury, if not its leading poet, was not only firmly held 
at Cambridge University but was loudly proclaimed, 
much to the wrath, as will be seen later, of professional 
critics who resented any attempt to force upon their 
approval reputations which had not received from 
themselves their first certificate of merit. 

Illustrations of this conviction of Tennyson's great- 
ness abound during the whole of his university career. 
Especially was this true after the publication of his 
first volume of verse, while he was still an undergrad- 
uate. **My brother John," wrote Fanny Kemble in 
the recollections of her girlhood, ''gave me the first 
copy of his poems I ever possessed."^ It was accom- 
panied with a prophecy of his future fame and excel- 
lence written on the flyleaf. The brother did not con- 
fine his predictions to his sister. On April 1, 1830, he 
wrote to Trench about both Charles and Alfred. He 
declared them to be ''of the highest class." "In 
Alfred's mind," he continued, "the materials of the 
very greatest works are heaped in an abundance which 
is almost confusion. Charles has just published a 
volume of superb sonnets ; and his brother and Hallam 
are about to edit their poems conjointly. One day these 
men will be great indeed."^ Similarly in January of 
this year Blakesley, who died as dean of Lincoln, wrote 
from Cambridge to the same man of the accession of 
Hallam and Tennyson to the ranks of the Apostles. 
"The Society," he said, "has received a great addition 

1 'Eecords of a Girlhood,' 1879, p. 184. 

2 'Letters and Memorials of Archbishop Trench,' 1888, Vol. I, p. 59. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 77 

in Hallam and in Alfred Tennyson, the author of the 
last prize poem, 'Timbuctoo' (of which Landor, whom 
I dare say, you will see at Rome, will give you an 
account) — truly one of the mighty of the earth. You 
will be delighted with him when you see him.'" 

This early extravagant advocacy of Tennyson's 
claims, and the early proclamation of his greatness 
by his friends were attended by a result which could 
have been predicted beforehand. The enthusiasm dis- 
played by them in his behalf, if it did not actually re- 
tard the growth of his reputation, certainly did not 
advance it. Their ardent and undiscriminating eulogy 
provoked disparaging and contemptuous criticism. 
However painful this may have been at the time to the 
subject of it, it is not improbable that it contributed 
more to the development of his powers and to the 
chastening of his style than the atmosphere of unmixed 
laudation in which his first efforts made their appear- 
ance in the circle of which he formed a part. 

But in that college circle everything was at that time 
favorable. While still a student at the university he 
produced the piece to which reference was made by 
Blakesley. On Saturday, June 6, 1829, the Chancel- 
lor's gold medal for the best English poem by a resi- 
dent undergraduate was adjudged to Alfred Tenny- 
son. He had not been a willing contestant for the 
prize he secured. It was at his father's wish that he 
competed. The subject given was Timbuctoo. Accord- 
ingly he furbished up an old poem entitled ' The Battle 
of Armageddon,' to do duty in celebrating a city of 

ijfctd., p. 50. 



78 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which he and every one else knew nothing — a city 
accordingly which imagination could endow with 
stately palaces, fair gardens, argent streets, pagodas, 
obelisks, minarets, and towers, even though reason 
whispered that these visionary objects would in reality 
shrink into a settlement of huts low-built and mud- 
walled. The poem itself consisted of about two hun- 
dred and fifty lines. The distinguishing peculiarity 
of it was that it was written in blank verse; for the 
revolutionary spirit that was then in the air extended 
even to poetical composition. Hallam's competing 
production, too, was in terza rima. Both the measures 
chosen outraged all academical tradition; for from 
the beginning the rhymed heroic verse had been conse- 
crated to prize poetry. Of the unsuccessful contest- 
ants we know the names of Arthur Henry Hallam, of 
Eichard Monckton Milnes, and of George Stovin Ven- 
ables. Doubtless there were several others. The piece 
itself was printed the same year in the 'Prolusiones 
AcademicoB. ' It was later reprinted several times, 
though not until a comparatively recent period has it 
been included in the editions of the poet's works. 

No satisfactory reason has ever yet been furnished 
for the subjects chosen for prize poems. These are 
usually as wonderful as the verse to which they give 
birth. We have seen that the one named for 1829 was 
Timbuctoo. To most men the selection mil now 
appear absolutely incomprehensible. Why of all the 
places in the world this city on the southern verge of 
the Sahara Desert with its affluence of mud houses and 
its penury of palaces should have been picked out as 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 79 

the subject of a prize poem will be explained by them 
as due to that inscrutable providence which seems to 
have designed that the character of the topics to be 
treated in this sort of literature should be adapted to 
the character of the literature itself. 

At the same time there were then some special rea- 
sons which were of weight in dictating the choice. 
Attention had for many years been directed to that 
portion of the dark continent in which lay this city. 
To the civilized world it was known only by report. 
There was something of the same desire to reach it 
as there has been to see Mecca; but it was at that 
particular time much more intense and widespread. 
Interest, too, had long been aroused in the equally 
mysterious river near which it stood. To find either 
the source or mouth of the Niger and to trace its course 
had been before the period under consideration, and 
long after continued to be, one of the baffling problems 
of African exploration. But during the decade from 
1820 to 1830 special interest had been awakened in the 
city itself. It had flourished for centuries, it had been 
the seat of successive kingdoms and the prize of con- 
tending nations; yet it was now hid in an obscurity 
which no efforts seemed able to dissipate. Neither its 
character nor its extent was known, not even its pre- 
cise situation. Vague dreams of its magnificence 
floated in the imaginations of some, with pretty con- 
fident belief in its meanness on the part of others. 
Everything was possibly existent in a place which no 
European eyes had ever beheld. Mungo Park had 
passed by its port in 1805. In 1826 Major Laing had 



80 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

reached it and sojourned in it for some weeks; but 
on his return he fell a victim to the jealousy which had 
long guarded the secret of the city's situation and 
character. Perishing in the desert his papers never 
saw the light. In 1828 the Frenchman, Rene Caillie, 
visited it and remained in it fourteen days. So at least 
he said, though his account, now admitted to be true, 
was at the time received with suspicion, if not with 
positive incredulity. Naturally, therefore, about the 
city itself still remained an atmosphere of mystery and 
of consequent curiosity. That is pretty clearly the 
reason why Timbuctoo was selected as the subject. 

When Pendennis asks Warrington, who had told 
him he was a poet, whether it was his 'Ariadne in 
Naxos' or his Prize Poem on which he based his fav- 
orable opinion, that kindly but rough critic is repre- 
sented as yelling out to his inquiring friend this genial 
outburst: ''Of all the miserable, weak rubbish I ever 
tried, 'Ariadne in Naxos' is the most mawkish and 
disgusting." "The Prize Poem," he continued, "is 
so pompous and feeble that I'm positively surprised, 
sir, it didn't get the medal." This somewhat pro- 
nounced criticism is unfortunately sustained by the 
character of many and perhaps most of the poems 
which have attained this distinction. Still, several of 
them have been the work of men who subsequently 
acquired more or less poetic reputation — such as 
Heber, Bulwer, Milman, Macaulay, Praed, and Mat- 
thew Arnold. Yet the common view is justified by the 
literary quality of these pieces. As a general rule 
there is only one sort of poem which is fuller of sus- 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 81 

tained and imposing tediousness than a prize poem: 
and that is a competing poem which has not taken the 
prize. Nor can it well be maintained, as it seems to 
me, that the 'Timbuctoo' of Tennyson varies mate- 
rially from the estimate implied in the words which 
Thackeray puts in the mouth of Warrington. Indeed, 
Tennyson's own opinion seems not to have differed 
from this. Sometime during the decade from 1830 
to 1840 — his son is inclined to put it as perhaps about 
1831 — a letter was sent the poet by a printer who 
asked leave to include 'Timbuctoo' in a collection of 
prize poems. Tennyson gave to the application a 
somewhat reluctant assent. He took care at the same 
time to indicate his opinion of works of this nature. 
''Prize poems," he wrote, ''(without any exception 
even in favour of Mr. Milman's 'Belvidere') are not 
properly speaking 'Poems' at all, and ought to be for- 
gotten as soon as recited. I could have wished that 
poor 'Timbuctoo' might have been suffered to slide 
quietly off, with all its errors, into f orgetfulness. ' ' 

Nor was this merely the feeling of the moment. 
About the middle of the century he expressed the same 
sentiment to a subsequent gainer of the prize who 
had also written his poem in blank verse. "I could 
wish that it had never been written," he said of his 
own production.^ Still whatever may have been the 
poet's own estimate of his work, there is no doubt as to 
the opinion entertained of it in the little circle to 
which he belonged. The enthusiasm of his admirers 
found at once vociferous vent. 'Timbuctoo' was hailed 

1 F. W. Farrar 's ' Men I have Known, ' 1897, p. 20. 



82 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

as a masterpiece of genius. On the strength of the 
excellence displayed in it, prophetic anticipations of 
the future greatness of its author were loudly pro- 
claimed. There was little hesitation, little restraint 
in the language of the band of admirers who sur- 
rounded the young poet. Two of the competitors for 
the prize expressed their admiration in extravagant 
terms. In a letter dated September 14, 1829, Hallam 
wrote about 'Timbuctoo' to his friend Gladstone, then 
a student at Oxford. In this he gave utterance to the 
following bit of prophecy inspired by the poem. ' ' The 
splendid imaginative power that pervades it," he 
wrote, **will be seen through all hindrances. I con- 
sider Tennyson as promising fair to be the greatest 
poet of our generation, perhaps of our century."^ A 
little later Milnes bore similar testimony. "Tenny- 
son's poem has made quite a sensation," he wrote to 
his father in the latter part of October. **It is cer- 
tainly equal to most parts of Milton. ' ' 

These extravagant words express, to be sure, the 
opinion of boys still under age, and of boys further- 
more who had been unsuccessful competitors for the 
prize; and if one is beaten in a poetical contest, it is 
certainly more creditable to be beaten by the equal of 
Milton or by the greatest poet of the century than by 
some one destined to be a nameless nonentity. Yet 
almost as high praise came from another and entirely 
disinterested quarter. Charles Wordsworth, the fu- 
ture bishop of St. Andrews, was an Oxford man. 
There is no ground for supposing him to have had a 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 46. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 83 

personal acquaintance with Tennyson. Yet he thought 
'Timbuctoo' ''a wonderful production," though he 
admitted that if such a piece had been sent up at 
Oxford, its author, instead of receiving the prize, 
would have been more likely to have been rusticated 
with the view of his passing a few months at a lunatic 
asylum. Still, he added, '4f it had come out with 
Lord Byron's name, it would have been thought as 
fine as anything he ever wrote. ' ' This was as ridicu- 
lous a remark as anything that Tennyson's Cambridge 
friends had said. It is, however, fair to take into 
account that the production of a poem as fine as any- 
thing Byron ever wrote would not have been deemed 
by the utterer extravagant praise, if it came from a 
member of the Wordsworth family. 

Such opinions, absurd as they now strike us, re- 
flected with some accuracy the prevalent sentiment 
of the coterie which had gathered about the young 
poet. It found indeed published expression in a 
critical periodical which was then in the beginning of 
a long and yet unended career. Early in January, 
1828, 'The AthenaBum' had been set on foot by James 
Silk Buckingham, an inveterate founder of periodicals. 
For the first few years after its creation, it maintained 
a somewhat precarious existence. It early passed into 
the hands of Frederick Denison Maurice. He in 1829 
resigned the editorship to John Sterling, though he 
continued to contribute to its columns. Both these 
graduates of the university were connected by the 
closest ties with the younger body of men who made 
up the Cambridge set to which Tennyson belonged. In 



84 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

August, 1828, Trench wrote to Kemble that Maurice 
and "that gallant band of Platonico-Wordsworthian- 
Coleridgean-anti-Utilitarians " were at the helm of 
'The Athenaeum' with undivided sway. In the follow- 
ing month he informed the same correspondent that 
this periodical was written entirely by Apostles. 

Naturally no hostile criticism would come from such 
a quarter. But what was hardly to be expected, highly 
favorable criticism came instead. It is something 
unusual for prize poems to receive the notice of 
reviewers. It was the connection of the then editors 
of 'The AthensBum' with the members of the Apos- 
tolic band that led to the exception which was made 
in this particular case. In July, 1829, appeared in 
that periodical a highly eulogistic notice of 'Timbuc- 
too.' Included in the article was an extract from the 
poem itself to the extent of fifty lines. ''We have 
accustomed ourselves," said the critic, "to think, 
perhaps without any good reason, that poetry was 
likely to perish among us for a considerable period, 
after the great generation of poets which is now pass- 
ing away. The age seems determined to contradict us, 
and that in the most decided manner: for it has put 
forth poetry by a young man, and that where we 
should least expect it — namely, in a prize poem. 
These productions have often been ingenious and ele- 
gant, but we have never before seen one of them which 
indicates really first-rate poetical genius, and which 
would have done honor to any man that ever wrote. 
Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work be- 
fore us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 85 

ourselves, for they have assigned the prize to its 
author, tho ' the measure in which he writes has never 
before, we believe, been thus selected for honor." 
Then, after quoting the passage from lines 62 to 112 
the reviewer solemnly added; ''How many men who 
have lived for a century could equal this ? ' ' 

Of course it is idle to pretend that this is an out- 
side impartial estimate of the production. It is 
equally idle to celebrate its courage and foresight, 
now that later achievement has shown that this partic- 
ular poet has realized the anticipations of his early 
admirers. For 'Timbuctoo' was in no sense whatever 
a great poem. There are fine lines in it and even fine 
passages. Still, none of them belong to poetry of the 
highest order. Had not Tennyson written many 
things far better, his name would scarcely be heard 
of now, if heard of at all. It was not his fault that 
what appeared in the poem could hardly be said to 
have the slightest connection with the place which did 
duty for its title. Nobody knew anything about Tim- 
buctoo. Accordingly it was excusable for the poet not 
to say anything about it, though he was careful to 
drag in its name. It was consequently inevitable that 
there should be in it an indefiniteness which verged 
closely upon the incomprehensible. In fact, this was 
the view taken at the time in Cambridge itself. Even 
the enthusiastic Hallam, who saw in the production the 
promise of the greatest poet of the century, declared 
that the examiners by striking out the prose argu- 
ment, which the author had prefixed to the piece, had 
done all in their power to verify the concluding words, 



86 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

"All was dark," which he quoted, however, as ''All 
was night." 

Naturally a poem which depended for its comprehen- 
sibility upon a prose argument prefixed, cannot strictly 
be deemed entitled to the praise of clearness. In 
truth, several years after — in 1836 — appeared in the 
then rowdy, rollicking monthly, 'Eraser's Magazine,' 
an article in the shape of a letter from Cambridge, pur- 
porting to give the philosophy of the art of plucking. 
It was followed by another article in the number for 
July which pretended to give pluck examination 
papers.^ In the first of the two the Chancellor's medal 
was disrespectfully designated as the annual medal for 
the discouragement of English poetry. In the second 
there was a series of questions in a critical examina- 
tion paper. One was to this effect: "What is Pro- 
fessor Smythe's opinion of the Nebulous and Incom- 
prehensible in Poetry? Illustrate your explanation by 
extracts from Tennyson's Timhuctoo." 

In truth, 'Timbuctoo,' after Tennyson had founded 
a school of his own, might have been produced by a 
score of his best imitators without exciting any par- 
ticular remark. It would certainly in such a case have 
had no result of producing a prediction that a new 
great poet had arisen. Still, it is easy now to under- 
rate the piece as it was then to exalt it. There was a 
certain just foundation for the admiration that was 
felt and the enthusiasm that was displayed. For 
'Timbuctoo' was a poem written in a distinctly new 
style. It was no echo of any writer that had preceded. 

1 Vol. XIV, p. 117. 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 87 

That it was produced under the influence of several 
different ones has been pointed out by the critical per- 
spicacity of men who agree on the fact of imitation 
though not on the person imitated. One or two indeed 
have been selected for his model whom at that time 
Tennyson had not even read. It is not an uncommon 
thing to hear it said that in this poem the influence of 
Shelley is plainly discernible. Were anything spe- 
cially due to that author it would be the vague haze 
pervading it, which at times renders it no easy matter 
to make out the writer's drift, through the mist of 
words in which it is enveloped. Still, Tennyson was 
undoubtedly capable of being obscure on his own 
account and did not need to resort to Shelley for 
assistance in that particular. Necessarily every young 
writer is influenced by poets of the past. But just as 
in his boyish lines in his first production in the volume 
brought out in conjunction with his brother, whatever 
of those which were distinctly best was purely his own, 
so it was in ' Timbuctoo. ' A new and original poet had 
come who was to introduce into our literature a method 
of expression conspicuously different from what had 
gone before. His admirers recognized it and felt it 
from the first. They were impressed by its novelty, 
they were led to celebrate it unduly before its fulness 
and force had been developed. In consequence, they 
gave it the credit of possessing a beauty and power 
which was indicated but not yet attained. 

This fact enables us to understand the fervor of 
praise with which many of Tennyson's early pieces 
were received which strike us now as being possessed 



88 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of but ordinary merit. It was a new force in litera- 
ture which was manifesting itself. The men who 
admired it welcomed it with an enthusiasm which they 
could not have felt later when it had become familiar 
to every one. On the contrary, the followers of the 
old school looked upon it askance or displayed abso- 
lute indifference. They either refused to read it at 
all, or read it only for the sake of vituperating it. 
In these opposite points of view and the states of 
mind engendered by them lay the tardy recognition 
which waited upon Tennyson's first efforts and the 
hold he acquired and retained when acceptance of his 
work had at last become general. The change of atti- 
tude on the part of the public was indicated by him 
later in the poem entitled 'The Flower.' Tennyson 
emphatically denied that in this piece he had made 
any allusion to himself personally or to his own for- 
tunes. He called it ''an universal apologue and para- 
ble." To a writer who had sent him a volume of 
essays he remarked that "you have fallen into a not 
uncommon error with respect to my little fable 'The 
Flower', as if 'I' in the poem meant A. T. and 'the 
flower' my own verses." 

It is just to accept this disclaimer by Tennyson of 
any intended allusion to his own personality. It was 
a universal truth which he had made prominent in his 
apologue. Still, it is evident a natural, perhaps the 
natural interpretation of the lines, was that it was a 
reference to his own fortunes. This little piece 
appeared originally in the volume entitled 'Enoch 
Arden, etc.,' which came out in 1864. For nearly a 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 89 

score of years Tennyson had been recognized as 
standing at the head of living English poets. A crowd 
of imitators had sprung up in every quarter. They 
had made his style and method of expression familiar. 
The inevitable reaction from this excessive popularity 
had already begun to show its face, though it was not 
till the following decade that it ventured to display 
its hostility openly. The poet's peculiarities of diction 
had not only been commented upon, but they had been 
imitated and reproduced until the queasy taste of the 
public was beginning to show manifest signs of having 
become weary of what it had previously cherished. 
The seed which he had sown had produced the flower 
which was first called a weed. It had few admirers 
and many vituperators. Then all had been changed. 
Everybody praised the flower. Everybody procured 
the seed. Soon its commonness began to make men 
tired of it and once more led them to term it a weed. 
For the seed sown in unsatisfactory soil could not pro- 
duce the perfect flower; but it could produce some- 
thing which looked like it, which suggested it, which 
bore to it, in fact, so close a resemblance that it tended 
to impress itself as the genuine article upon that large 
number whose literary perception was not sufficiently 
keen to detect the presence of that incommunicable 
something that not merely distinguishes genius from 
mediocrity but genius from poetic talent of a high 
order. The reader was reminded of Tennyson; but 
because of the lack of that subtle something which 
cannot well be described or defined, he did not feel him 
as a force. 



90 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

One episode there was in Tennyson's career at the 
university which had little to do with prize poetry or 
college honors. During the summer of 1830 he made 
with Hallam a foot-journey across France to the 
Pyrenees. The trip was undertaken in behalf of the 
Spanish revolutionists. Eeaders of Carlyle's 'Life of 
John Sterling' will remember the account given in it 
of the exiled general Torrijos, and the tragic fate 
which overtook him and his little band of followers 
when he set out upon his hopeless expedition into the 
south of Spain. Only incidental mention is made of 
the young Englishmen who cast in their lot with the 
conspirators. Sympathy had been strongly excited at 
Cambridge mth the aims of the patriots seeking to 
free liberty bound hand and foot in their native land. 
Especially did this exist in the Apostolic band, as its 
members had now begun to designate themselves. 
With these the influence of Sterling was then pre- 
dominant. He himself was engaged heart and soul 
in the cause of the Spanish liberalists. The project 
appealed strongly indeed to men of ardent natures 
fired with the zeal of youth which often leads them to 
rush on hopeless enterprises, and sometimes enables 
them to accomplish apparent impossibilities, under the 
divine impulse of the belief that what ought to be is 
to be. Two men engaged in this expedition there were 
who found themselves waiting at Gibraltar for an 
opportunity to make a descent upon Spain and raise 
there the standard of constitutional liberty. For- 
tunately for them, the opportunity was not allowed 
to present itself. Finding nothing to do, or rather 



I 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 91 

that nothing could be done, they returned to England. 
In consequence, they were saved from having any 
share in the later tragic end of the enterprise. These 
two men were John Mitchell Kemble and Richard 
Chenevix Trench. Considering the nature of their 
respective careers in life, their participation in this 
enterprise creates a mild surprise in the modern 
reader. 

Some of the Spaniards engaged in this revolutionary 
undertaking were, however, on the borders of France. 
It was to these conspirators that Hallam and Tenny- 
son went. To them they bore money and letters 
written in invisible ink. Early in July the two Cam- 
bridge students set out to make the journey and to 
spend in this novel way a part of their long vacation. 
They accomplished their mission safely, Tennyson, 
however, was not altogether favorably impressed with 
the views of some of the revolutionists he met. To 
Hallam and him, one of them, so far as his imperfect 
utterance would permit, confided his intention to cut 
the throats of all the priests. He apologized for the 
difficulty he experienced in expressing in an unknown 
tongue various aspirations of this character. He 
added, however, in French, ''But you know my heart." 
"And a pretty black one it is," was the comment 
Tennyson made to himself.^ In a letter sent from 
Cambridge in December of this year Hallam gave to 
Trench an account of this trip. ''Alfred went, as you 
know, with me," wrote he, "to the south of France, 

1 Mrs. Eitchie 's ' EecoUections of Tennyson, Euskin and Browning, ' 
1892, p. 23, 



92 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

and a wild, bustling time we had of it. I played my 
part as conspirator in a small way, and made friends 
with two or three gallant men, who have been since 
trying their luck with Valdez." There are two refer- 
ences in Tennyson's published verse to this passage 
in his life. One is in the seventy-first poem in 'In 
Memoriam. ' There he speaks of 

The Past 
In which we went thro' summer France. 

Again he refers to this trip in the little piece, first 
published in 1864, which is entitled 'In the Valley of 
Cauteretz.' In that he speaks of having walked here 
two and thirty years before with one that he loved. 
It is characteristic of the demon of accuracy which 
took possession of Tennyson in his later life that he 
became much vexed with himself for having written 
two and thirty years instead of one and thirty; as if 
any one besides himself would know the precise time 
when the poem was written. The very year of his 
death he wished to alter it, and was only persuaded to 
let it stand because it was the reading with which the 
public had become familiar. Accuracy of the sort 
just indicated is of highest importance in a work deal- 
ing with the facts of history or biography. In a work 
of the imagination it is of the slightest earthly conse- 
quence. 

The return journey was not made on foot. On the 
eighth of September, the two adventurers took passage 
at Bordeaux on the steamer 'Leeds' which was sailing 
for Dublin. Before he went on this journey, however, 



UNIVERSITY LIFE 93 

Tennyson had made an appeal to the public in a volume 
of verse. With it his distinctively literary career may 
be said to have begun. The work appeared in the early 
part of that period of transition which was going on in 
the world of politics and letters. Accordingly, before 
we can make ourselves really acquainted with the 
career of the man who was to become the representa- 
tive voice of his generation or can understand the 
influences which operated to hasten or retard his recep- 
tion by the general public, we must get, in the first 
place, a clear conception of the literary situation as 
it existed at the time of Tennyson's appearance as 
an author; and in the second place, a general knowl- 
edge of the writers who were occupying the attention 
of the public for the years which followed that appear- 
ance. Even more important at this point is it to make 
a survey of the critical literature of the time and of 
the influence it wielded. This latter indeed is of par- 
ticular consequence because of the poet's abnormal 
sensitiveness to criticism and the peculiar influence it 
exerted upon his course of action. In any account of 
his career it therefore naturally takes precedence. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 

PERIOD 

Part One 
Critical Literature of the Period 

Readers of 'Pilgrim's Progress' will remember that 
Christian, when he came to the end of the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death, saw lying there the blood, bones, 
ashes, and mangled bodies of men who had traversed 
that road formerly. These were the remains of those 
who in old time had been cruelly put to death by two 
giants dwelling in a cave near at hand. Their names 
were Pope and Pagan. Pagan, he found, had been 
dead many a day; and Pope, though still alive, had 
grown so old and crazy and stiff in his joints, that he 
could do little more than sit in the mouth of his habita- 
tion and grin at the pilgrims as they went by, and bite 
his nails because he could not come at them. 

This description of the part taken by the two giants, 
so far as it is a portrayal of Puritan feeling, is a not 
untrue picture of the position which according to the 
belief of large numbers was held by the * Edinburgh' 
and 'Quarterly' reviews during the first third of the 
last century. The opinion, then quietly but widely 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 95 

accepted, and sometimes expressed, was that these 
periodicals, if they could not bring good fortune to 
those they favored, could bring misfortune and ruin to 
those they attacked. If for any cause a work failed, 
which they chanced to notice unfavorably, the result 
was not attributed by the author to any defect in the 
work itself, but wholly to the hostile criticism which 
it had received from one or both of these powerful 
organs. This was especially true of the 'Edinburgh'; 
more specially true of it when it reigned without a 
rival from its commencement in 1802 to 1809, the year 
in which the 'Quarterly' was set on foot. Even after 
that time, little limit seems to have been assigned to 
its power to elevate or depress. Naturally, according 
to the scale of the particular approval or censure found 
in its columns, its editor Jeffrey was correspondingly 
adored or hated. 

The days are gone by so completely that it can 
hardly be said that they are remembered, when these 
two great quarterlies were mighty powers both in the 
world of literature and of politics. The conditions 
which then gave them their influence have now dis- 
appeared. It is hardly possible for us even to con- 
ceive such a state of things existing as is indicated 
in a letter written from London by Lockhart to Wil- 
liam Blackwood towards the end of January, 1830. 
He tells his correspondent that in consequence of an 
article in the last 'Quarterly,' stocks had fallen two 
per cent. This the Master of the Mint had told the 
Duke of Wellington. Thereupon the Dictator, as Lock- 
hart terms the Duke, had sent for Croker and Barrow 



96 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to the Cabinet Council and rowed them. They in turn 
sent for Murray and rowed him. Then the publisher 
took his turn and came and rowed Lockhart. "God 
knows how this may end," he concluded, — ''I care 
not."^ The information given by the author himself 
of the effect which was wrought by the 'Quarterly' 
article may have been exaggerated ; but it is manifest 
that in the eyes of the writer it would seem in no wise 
surprising to his correspondent. 

Great as was the influence wielded by these two peri- 
odicals in politics, it was even greater in literature. It 
is rarely the case now that anything they say raises 
even as much as a ripple on the current of contempo- 
rary criticism. One indeed would not wish even in 
these days to be treated disrespectfully by a 'Quar- 
terly' reviewer; still one would not be likely to lose 
much sleep over it. Only under peculiar conditions 
does its most unfavorable notice have marked effect 
upon the fortunes of the work attacked. Accordingly, 
in spite of our acquaintance with the ovine nature of 
man in the matter of literary judgments, we wonder 
that the educated class of any period could allow their 
opinions to be manufactured for them by these self- 
constituted arbiters. Yet this they unquestionably 
did then. It was done, too, on the grandest scale. 
Exceptions took place only when the verdicts pro- 
nounced ran counter to the feelings or prejudices of 
the reader or came in conflict with his superior knowl- 
edge. But in the criticism passed upon little-known 
authors this was rarely the case. Hence the decisions 

1 ' William Blackwood and his Sons, ' by Mrs. Oliphant, Vol. I, p. 246. 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 97 

announced by these periodicals were usually accepted 
without hesitation by the public. 

It is fair to say that the possession of this influence 
was to a large extent honestly earned. There is no 
question that efforts were put forth by the quarterlies 
to secure the ablest and best-informed writers. Hence 
on many topics they spoke with an authority that could 
not well be gainsaid. On points where knowledge and 
scholarship were involved, the conclusions they came to 
were apt to be right. This was not always the case. 
Certain most woeful blunders have to be charged to 
their credit, or rather discredit. Still, it was so gen- 
erally; for learning, unlike genius, is something that 
can be tested, can be weighed in the balance. Its value 
can therefore be exactly ascertained and clearly stated. 
The only exception is when some one happens to come 
along who is vastly better informed upon a particular 
subject than any one else. It becomes then a matter 
of chance whether he shall be deified by those who 
know less than he or denounced by those who igno- 
rantly fancy that they know more. 

It is further to be kept in mind that for a long time 
the quarterlies had the field of higher literary criti- 
cism practically to themselves. They had come to be 
the only organs which possessed authority recognized 
by the general public. For more than half a century 
preceding their existence there had been periodicals 
which had paid particular attention to book-reviewing. 
To that indeed some of the original ones had been 
exclusively devoted. These were the two which bore 
the names of the 'Monthly' and the 'Critical'; for 



98 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

previous publications, such as the 'Works of the 
Learned,' were in many ways of an entirely distinct 
character. The 'Monthly' began in 1749, the 'Critical' 
in 1756. During the last half of the eighteenth century 
these flourished with a vigor and repute which was 
but little affected by periodicals of a similar char- 
acter — such, for example, as the 'London,' the 'Ana- 
lytical' and the 'English Review' — which sprang up 
every now and then, but usually lasted only a few 
years. These two which had first occupied the field 
survived into the nineteenth century. But while they 
continued to retain something of an audience, the 
general feebleness of their contents and the particular 
feebleness of their conductors and contributors grad- 
ually deprived them of influence. So when the 'Edin- 
burgh' appeared, it had almost a clear field to itself 
even in the department of literature, though this was 
but a portion of the ground it set out to cover. The 
'Critical' gave up the ghost after a number of years. 
The 'Monthly,' however, continued to exist after a 
fashion down to nearly the middle of the nineteenth 
century. But during the latter portion of its career 
it never had much effect upon public opinion. 

Nor was the influence of the two great quarterlies 
seriously affected by the several other ventures in the 
same field, which were either in existence when they 
themselves came into being or sprang up from time to 
time afterward. These were usually, though not inva- 
riably, monthlies. Some of them, like 'The Anti- 
Jacobin Review,' were the organs of parties. Hence 
their literary criticism was always more or less influ- 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 99 

enced by political considerations. A similar statement 
can be made of periodicals of another kind, such, for 
example, as 'The British Critic' and 'The Eclectic 
Review,' whose reviewers were largely under the 
influence of sectarian bodies. On that very account 
they appealed to a limited class. Besides these there 
were a number of quarterlies and monthlies that 
sprang up at intervals and lasted at best but a few 
years. They produced no profound impression in any 
quarter. A fair specimen of these was 'The British 
Review,' which was begun in 1811 and lasted till 1825. 
This was somewhat disrespectfully described by Lord 
Byron as "my grandmother's review": a by no means 
inappropriate title, if we are to judge it by the char- 
acter of its contents. Naturally, none of these im- 
paired the influence or diminished the circulation of 
the two great quarterlies. The only periodical that 
came to contest their supremacy was 'The Westmin- 
ster Review,' the organ of the philosophical radicals; 
but this was much later. It did not make its appear- 
ance until 1824. 

The first of the real agencies that came to displace 
the quarterlies from the position of influence in cur- 
rent criticism which they held during the first third 
of the nineteenth century was the monthly magazine. 
The magazine itself had sprung into existence in the 
earlier half of the eighteenth century. The ones that 
first appeared — and they soon came to be numerous — 
contained no original matter. As their name implies 
they were at the outset nothing but storehouses of the 
material in the shape of essays which the newspapers 



100 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

had previously put forth or of the news which they 
had collected. Accordingly, they were published at 
the very beginning of the month following the date 
they bore — that is, for example, the magazine for Jan- 
uary came out the first of February. This was a prac- 
tice which did not disappear entirely till the following 
century. Naturally they did not at first deal with 
reviews of current literature. In the change which 
they underwent in the second half of the eighteenth 
century, they began to pay some attention to this sub- 
ject also. But their notices of books were pretty gen- 
erally meager as regards length and too often feeble 
as regards character. Serious work of this sort was 
mainly left to the two leading monthlies, already men- 
tioned, which devoted themselves exclusively to book- 
reviewing. All this was changed, however, with the 
founding of 'Blackwood's Magazine' in April, 1817; 
or rather with its second founding in October of the 
same year. 

This magazine which now came to the front was 
essentially different in character and conduct from 
those which had previously borne the name. In its 
new form it appealed to a far larger circle of educated 
readers than did the quarterlies. It dealt as did they 
with political and literary questions; but it mingled 
with its discussion of topics of current interest matter 
which they did not pretend to furnish, such, for illus- 
tration, as fiction and poetry. 'Blackwood's' speedily 
took the leadership of this class of periodicals. Owing 
mainly to the talent of its chief contributor who was 
generally assumed to be the editor, it made for itself 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 101 

a conspicuous place in the field of literary criticism. 
From the time it passed out of the hands of its origi- 
nal editors, Pringle and Cleghorn, it came to be dis- 
tinguished by the audacity, billingsgate, malice, wrath, 
and all uncharitableness which when manifested 
towards others than ourselves — especially towards 
those opposed to us in opinion — are above all things 
dear to the carnal heart. Combined also with its 
horse-play and its abusiveness, often degenerating 
into blackguardism, was wit of the keenest character. 
But more than any of these qualities, the critical abil- 
ity displayed in its columns, with its generally high 
and cordial appreciation of what was really excellent 
in literature, recommended it to a class of readers who 
may or may not have sympathized with its political 
views. Furthermore, it came out with unvarying 
regularity, while the quarterlies were not only pub- 
lished at much greater intervals, but they were very 
apt to appear just when it suited the convenience or 
laziness of their editors. The date on the number of 
the periodical was a very untrustworthy indication of 
the date of its appearance. This was particularly true 
of the 'Quarterly' under Gifford's editorship. 

'Blackwood's Magazine' set a new standard for 
publications of this sort. It changed very materially 
their character. Many of them naturally clung to the 
old methods; but in the path now opened imitators 
soon pressed in. It is only necessary here to mention 
' The London Magazine ' which was started in 1820 but 
died before the third decade of the century was com- 
pleted. During its short career, however, it made for 



102 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

itself a lasting reputation by publishing among other 
things the 'Essays of Elia' and the 'Confessions of an 
Opium-Eater. ' Then 'The New Monthly Magazine' 
was reconstituted in this same year with Thomas 
Campbell as its editor, a position he held until 1830. 
Neither of these publications took the place in popular 
estimation occupied by 'Blackwood's.' It was not till 
the rise in London of a new periodical of its own politi- 
cal faith that its leadership was at all shaken. This 
was 'Eraser's Magazine' which was started in 1831 
by Hugh Eraser, and Maginn, an old contributor to 
'Blackwood's,' who will live forever in literature as 
the Captain Shandon of 'Pendennis.' At the outset, 
this periodical surpassed in its brutality and the gross- 
ness of its personalities its northern contemporary; 
but it also gathered to its support many of the very 
ablest men of letters flourishing already, or just begin- 
ning their career ; and its columns will always have to 
be consulted by him who wishes to ascertain the gen- 
eral trend of critical opinion prevalent during the 
transition period among a large and influential class 
of contributors and readers. 

But with us the magazine has largely ceased to be a 
vehicle of literary criticism. In those which devote 
any attention to it at all, it occupies generally a subor- 
dinate place; in much the largest number of periodi- 
cals of this class it occupies no place worth consider- 
ing. The field it once covered is now largely taken by 
the weeklies and the dailies. The former was the 
agency which was destined ultimately to occupy, after 
a fashion, the place once filled by the quarterlies and 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 103 

to some extent subsequently filled by the magazines. 
At the opening of the fourth decade, this class of 
periodicals was slowly making its way to the front. 
Early in the century there had been several attempts 
to establish weeklies which should be given up prin- 
cipally to criticism. None of these met with any per- 
manent success. At last in 1817 the publisher Col- 
burn started 'The Literary Gazette and Journal of 
Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc' Of this William 
Jerdan became in the course of the same year a part 
proprietor and the editor. After various ups and 
do^vns it was placed on a paying basis. At the begin- 
ning of the period now under consideration, it was 
much the most influential of the purely literary week- 
lies then existing in England. Such it remained for 
some time afterward. This, too, in spite of the fact 
that its reviews were often produced more largely by 
the agency of the scissors than of the brains. The use 
of this mechanical implement perhaps contributed 
materially to its success ; for the critical acumen of the 
editor was something that no intelligent man could 
take seriously. 

The prosperity of 'The Literary Gazette' naturally 
led to numerous imitators. Especially during the third 
decade — in particular during its closing years — a num- 
ber of these new competitors for popular favor sprang 
into being. This one fact shows clearly that it was in 
that direction that criticism was finding its natural 
avenue to expression. Against all these rivals Jerdan 
held his way for a while undisturbed. In the 'Noctes 



104 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Ambrosianae' for May, 1828, Hogg, the Ettrick Shep- 
herd, is represented as saying, *'Nane o' a' the new 
weekly periodicals w^ull ever cut out the Literary 
Gazette." ''Never, James," North replies, ''and sim- 
ply for one reason — Mr. Jerdan is a gentleman, and is 
assisted by none but gentlemen." At the very time 
these words of Christopher North were printed, the 
new weekly was in existence — 'The Athenaeum' — 
which was to perform the feat he had declared impos- 
sible. But the supremacy of 'The Literary Gazette' 
was as yet merely threatened. Belief in its perma- 
nence and its power still continued unshaken. Henry 
Taylor, in commenting upon Southey's uncompromis- 
ing independence, not to say defiance of criticism, 
wrote in 1831 to a correspondent that 'The Literary 
Gazette' could "do almost anything to the sale of a 
book"; and yet in spite of this, Southey had written 
an epigram upon William Jerdan, its editor, because 
he had attacked a volume of Charles Lamb's. It is 
hardly necessary to observe that no literary journal 
was ever able to do almost anything to the sale of a 
book. Undoubtedly a popular critical organ can influ- 
ence favorably or unfavorably the reputation of a 
writer or a work for a limited time; for the majority 
of readers prefer to take their opinions at second hand. 
But the result is never permanent in any case. The 
help or harm that is brought or wrought by such 
means to the repute or sale of a book is always transi- 
tory. Still, Taylor's remark is worth noting as indi- 
cating an opinion that was then widely prevalent about 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 105 

the power wielded by this particular periodical to 
benefit or to injure. 

Another class of weeklies, which later became com- 
mon, began to appear in considerable numbers about 
the beginning of the transition period. They were 
political as well as literary in their character, perhaps 
more distinctly political than literary. Their proto- 
type was 'The Literary Examiner,' which had been 
started as far back as 1808 by the Hunts, John and 
James Henry Leigh. By the class to which its then 
unpopular liberal politics appealed this periodical was 
held in high favor. As might be expected, both it and 
its editors were made the subjects of constant vitupera- 
tion in the Tory press as long as the periodical was 
under their management. At the beginning of the 
period under consideration, the control of it had fallen 
into the hands of Albany Fonblanque. To it came a 
few years later as literary and dramatic critic John 
Forster, the personal friend of many of the younger 
men of letters, notably of Robert Browning and 
Dickens. The junction of these two writers made the 
paper for a long time a powerful agent in moulding 
public opinion. But several periodicals of this nature, 
some of which were very ably conducted, began their 
existence a little before 1830. Of these one of the most 
influential was 'The Atlas.' It was founded in 1826. 
It had for a long time a high reputation, particularly 
so during the fourth and fifth decades. Testimony to 
the estimation in which it was held comes to us from 
widely different quarters. In 1839 FitzGerald, for 
instance, speaks of it as ''the best weekly critic of 



106 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Music and all other things that I know of. ' '^ In Sep- 
tember, 1844, Mrs. Browning describes it as the best 
of the newspapers for literary notices, though in the 
following month she modified this opinion by except- 
ing 'The Examiner.' Of the periodicals of this class 
then flourishing the only survivor is 'The Spectator' 
which was established in 1828 and has had a long and 
honorable career. Particularly was this true of it 
after its critical columns came under the control of 
Richard Holt Hutton in 1859. 

The critical literature of the daily papers often car- 
ries now a good deal of weight. At this time, however, 
it could hardly be said to exist at all. When it did 
appear, it was usually of little importance. It was not 
till the close of the fourth decade that the dailies began 
to give up any space worth considering to book- 
reviewing. Even the position of that was subordinate. 
Yet noted men, or men destined to become noted, were 
sometimes employed in this particular sort of work. 
Thackeray, for instance, was then an occasional con- 
tributor of such articles to the 'Times.' But develop- 
ment in this direction was slow. The truth is that 
during this period of transition a close connection with 
any newspaper, no matter how influential, was re- 
garded to some extent as a social stigma. There are 
singular exhibitions of this state of feeling recorded 
in the letters and journals of the time. In 1826, for 
instance, Murray, largely under the inspiration of the 
then young Disraeli, planned a great Tory organ. It 

1 Letter of April 30, 1839. 'Letters and Literary Eemains, ' Vol. I, 
p. 48. 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 107 

was a morning paper he projected which, was to be 
called 'The Representative.' In 1826 it began its 
existence. After a checkered career of six months, in 
which it had cost the proprietor twenty-six thousand 
pounds, it gave up the ghost. A great effort had been 
made to secure Lockhart as its editor. Disraeli visited 
him, in behalf of the publisher, with that object in 
view. It gives a vivid picture of the feelings of the 
time that Lockhart, as well as Lockhart 's father-in- 
law, felt it to be an impossibility for him to enter upon 
life in London in the capacity of a newspaper editor. 
It meant a descent in the social scale. The pill was 
sugar-coated for him, as well as it could be, by Disraeli, 
who grandiloquently assured him that he would come 
to the capital, ''not to be an editor of a newspaper but 
the Director-General of an immense organ and at the 
head of a band of high-bred gentlemen and important 
interests. ' ' 

This lofty description of his position and powers did 
not tempt Lockhart. He refused the offer. He refused 
it too on the ground that it was unsuitable to one of his 
station in life. By William Wright, a barrister of 
influence who corresponded with him on the subject, 
Canning is also reported to have said that Lockhart 
could come to London as editor of the 'Quarterly' but 
not as editor of a newspaper, or at least as a known 
or reputed editor. "I told Disraeli before he left," 
continued Wright, "he had a very delicate mission, 
and that though my rank in life was different to your 
own, having no relations whose feelings could be 
wounded by my accepting any honest employment, I 



108 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

should not receive an offer of an editorship of a news- 
paper as a compliment to my feelings as a barrister 
and a gentleman, however complimentary it might be 
to my talents." To the same effect spoke Sir Walter 
Scott. *'It is very true," he wrote to Murray, ''that 
this department of literature may and ought to be 
rendered more respectable than it is at present, but I 
think this is a reformation more to be wished than 
hoped for, and should think it rash for any young 
man, of whatever talent, to sacrifice, nominally at 
least, a considerable portion of his respectability in 
society in hopes of being submitted as an exception to 
a rule which is at present pretty general. This might 
open the door to love of money, but it would effectu- 
ally shut it against ambition."^ These words were 
written in 1825. That Scott continued to hold the same 
sentiments is evident from a letter to his son-in-law in 
1829 with reference to a proposal that the latter should 
be connected with some journal which the Duke of 
Wellington was wishing to purchase. "Your connec- 
tion with any newspaper," he wrote to Lockhart, 
"would be disgrace and degradation. I would rather 
sell gin to the poor people and poison them that way. ' " 
To us it seems a peculiar state of things that a posi- 
tion as the editor of a powerful daily like the 'Times' 
or the ' Chronicle ' of those days should be reckoned as 
involving social degradation, while the editorship of a 
quarterly periodical could be taken without risking 
any loss of standing, if it did not even carry with it a 

1 'Memoir of John Murray,' Vol. II, p. 197. 

2 A. Lang's 'Life and Letters of Lockhart,' Vol. II, pp. 51-52. 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 109 

certain distinction. But such assuredly seems then to 
have been the case. There is evidence too that this 
state of feeling continued to exist years later. In 1835, 
Fanny Kemble Butler published her journal giving 
an account of her travels in the United States. In the 
course of it she mentioned a gentleman of the press 
who called upon her and with whom she was pleased. 
' ' He seems to think much, ' ' she added, ^ ' of having had 
the honor of corresponding with sundry of the small 
literati of London.'" This was bad enough; but its 
atrocity was exceeded by a note which was appended. 
'' Except where they have been made political tools," 
were its words, ** newspaper writers and editors have 
never, I believe, been admitted into good society in 
England." It is little wonder that her work was 
reviewed with a severity to which she had previously 
been little accustomed. She received in profusion 
reminders that her own reputation was due to the 
very men she affected to despise. 

The monthlies and the weeklies were in full activity 
at the beginning of the fourth decade. They were 
steadily sapping the influence of the two great quar- 
terlies, but they had not seriously impaired it to out- 
ward view. They merely threatened it. True it was 
that the original editors to whom their success had 
been largely owing had disappeared from the stage 
of active management. Jeffrey had been succeeded by 
Macvey Napier, a man possibly of engaging character, 
but certainly of altogether less ability than his prede- 
cessor. In this respect the 'Quarterly' was more for- 

1 '.Journal of a Eesidence in America,' Paris, 1835, pp. 105-106. 



110 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tunate. Gifford, who had imparted to that periodical 
much of its peculiar acerbity, had retired from its 
editorship in 1824; he hated authors with a zeal that 
would have done credit to a feudal baron. Two years 
later he died. But the spirit in which it had been con- 
ducted continued to live in Lockhart, who after the 
brief sway of John Taylor Coleridge, held the reins 
until the spring of 1853. In consequence of his abilities 
and the position he held as the head of this review, 
he was for a long while one of the most prominent 
figures in the critical world, particularly so during the 
decade from 1830 to 1840. One result was that the 
influence of the 'Quarterly,' at least, if not of the 
'Edinburgh,' appears to have been for a time but little 
diminished. 

Singular illustrations of the feeling entertained 
about these two periodicals were manifested in quar- 
ters where we should least expect to see it. Bulwer, 
for instance, was the most popular of living English 
novelists for at least the first half of the thirties. His 
works, as fast as they were produced, invariably went 
from edition to edition. That they hit the taste of the 
public is manifest by their success even when they 
appeared anonymously. They were spoken of in 
terms of high praise by men who were none too lavish 
of their commendation. They were translated into 
foreign tongues. But all this did not content him. 
The one thing that rankled above all others in his 
bosom was that in neither of the two quarterlies had 
his name been mentioned either for praise or blame. 
Their failure to review his works was the one distinc- 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 111 

tion without which all the others apparently were as 
naught. His friends complained of it, while affecting 
to hold it in contempt. In May, 1831, Miss Landon 
contributed to 'The New Monthly Magazine' an arti- 
cle upon the novelist. It could not have been more 
eulogistic, not to say fulsome, if it had been dictated 
to the writer by Bulwer himself. '*We cannot but 
remark, ' ' she said in the course of it, ' ' on the singular 
silence preserved toward the most rising author of 
their day, in the two pseudo-called great Eeviews, the 
Edinburgh and the Quarterly." The former speed- 
ily repented of its neglect. It published a laudatory 
criticism of certain of Bulwer 's novels in which it 
apologized for its delay in not having noticed them 
before. Not so Lockhart, nor indeed his immediate 
successor. No review of Bulwer 's works appeared in 
the 'Quarterly' until 1865. 

The character of Lockhart is something of a puzzle. 
The notices of him that have been published have very 
largely come from his friends, or, at all events, from 
friendly sources. Yet over none of the critics of this 
period hangs so pervasive a cloud of distrust and dis- 
like. In the so-called Chaldee Manuscript which came 
out in the seventh number of 'Blackwood's Maga- 
zine,' and created at the time an unparalleled and to 
the modern reader a somewhat incomprehensible sen- 
sation, he was represented, doubtless by himself, as 
"the scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of 
men." The appellation was constantly applied to 
him later in a way and to an extent he probably came 
not altogether to like. Whether justly entitled to it 



112 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

or not, there clung to him something of the middle- 
age superstition about that insect which represented 
it as carrying a flattering face and a stinging tail. 
The comparison was not altogether appropriate. The 
latter characteristic might be conceded to Lockhart; 
but no one ever charged him with exhibiting the 
former. The Viper was another epithet frequently 
bestowed upon him. It cannot be maintained that such 
an appellation carries with it the idea of great per- 
sonal popularity. 

It is hard indeed to hit upon the exact origin of the 
general prejudice which seems always to have existed 
against Lockhart. He was undoubtedly a man of cold 
and reserved manner ; but it seems as if he must have 
developed to a disproportionate degree the faculty of 
making himself disagreeable, to have begot indiffer- 
ence so universal, where it did not pass over into 
active dislike. A professional reviewer has naturally 
his enemies ; but he has also his friends. Of the latter, 
Jeffrey had hosts. So had John Wilson. Even Gif- 
ford, the fierce and implacable, had found men to 
cherish towards him a lukewarm feeling which might 
perhaps deserve to be styled regard ; and what is much 
harder to understand, he had found men to admire his 
lyric verse. But while such persons may have existed 
in the case of Lockhart, and doubtless did exist, and 
perhaps in considerable numbers, it is no easy matter 
to find proof of the fact. Praise is not unfrequently 
paid to his works. Few are the passages, however, 
which one comes across in the journals or correspond- 
ence of this period to indicate that he himself was 



ml 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 113 

looked upon with affection by any one outside of his 
immediate family circle, or those with whom he shared 
the closest personal ties. Two bulky volumes, giving 
an account of his career, were brought out a few years 
ago by a brother Scotchman. They are avowedly of 
the nature of an argument for the defence. Every- 
thing in his favor that can be directly related or indi- 
rectly suggested is related or suggested. Everything 
which seems to bear hard upon his course is either 
softened or explained away, or even converted to his 
credit. The reader indeed after finishing the biog- 
raphy rises from its perusal not quite clear in his mind 
whether it is the life of Lockhart with which he has 
been concerned or with the life of one of the saints. 
Yet the special pleading of the work has done little or 
nothing towards rehabilitating the character of its 
subject. It seems rather to have impressed men with 
the justice of Dr. Johnson's dictum that a Scotchman 
must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scot- 
land better than truth, and that he will always love it 
better than inquiry. 

The influence of a critical article depends largely 
upon the repute of the periodical in which it makes its 
appearance. This is inevitably the case when the name 
of the reviewer, as usually happens, is withheld. 
Nothing marks more distinctly the difference between 
the past and the present than the incomparably 
greater importance once attached to the utterance 
of the quarterlies over those of the monthlies or over 
those of any other vehicle of criticism. This state of 
mind was indeed disappearing at the beginning of the 



114 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

fourth decade of the century. In time it disappeared 
altogether. But it continued to prevail then. We 
cannot indeed understand the feelings of both authors 
and readers during this period of transition without 
a clear perception of the attitude of the public towards 
these two classes of periodicals. To all outward 
appearance the inertia of past movement was still 
carrying the quarterlies along. Though they had 
really lost the commanding position they once held, 
the fact escaped for some time the notice of them- 
selves as well as that of their readers. A dozen years 
before, their supremacy could not have been questioned 
for a moment. The far higher position they occupied 
in comparison with other organs of criticism is brought 
out clearly in the diiference of the effect wrought upon 
public opinion by two noted attacks on Keats which 
appeared in the representatives of these two classes 
of periodicals — the one in a quarterly, the other in a 
monthly. 

In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for October, 1817, came 
out the first of a series of articles upon what was 
called The Cockney School of Poetry. It was followed 
by a second article in the same year, and by a third 
and fourth in July and August of the year following. 
They were all signed Z. Three of these articles were 
devoted to an attack upon Leigh Hunt as the chief 
doctor or professor of the so-called Cockney School. 
That author whom we are now apt to think of as a 
lively and amiable essayist was in the early days of the 
century recognized as an aggressive, trenchant, and 
outspoken leader-writer. He had for years aroused 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 115 

the wrath of the government periodicals by the liberal 
principles he constantly advocated. In particular he 
had sent a shock through all Torydom by the reflections 
which he had cast both upon the character and the 
personal appearance of the Prince Regent. In one of 
the organs of the government party, the official head 
of the state had been plastered with the most sicken- 
ing adulation. Hardly any laudatory phrases were 
missed in the encomiums passed upon him. Among 
other tributes to his perfections he had been styled 
**an Adonis in loveliness." The whole characteriza- 
tion aroused Hunt's ire. He had no hesitation in giv- 
ing vent to it. This Adonis in loveliness he described 
as ''a corpulent gentleman of fifty." He went on 
further to say that ''this delightful, blissful, mse, 
pleasant, honourable, virtuous, true, and immortal 
Prince" — all these epithets had been applied to him 
in 'The Morning Post' — "was a violator of his word, 
a libertine over head and ears in debt and disgrace, 
a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers 
and demi-reps, a man who had just closed half a cen- 
tury without one single claim on the gratitude of his 
country or the respect of posterity."^ Naturally this 
was not the sort of language to conciliate the favor 
of the Tory organs. From that time for years to come 
they let no occasion slip to attack Hunt upon every 
imaginable pretext. 

'Blackwood's Magazine' especially distinguished 
itself as his assailant. In the articles just mentioned 
there was practically no limit to the abuse heaped upon 

1 'The Examiner,' March 22, 1812. 



116 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

this underbred person, as he was designated, this ple- 
beian both in rank and mind as well as in station and 
society. But it was particularly upon the score of the 
immorality of his writings that attack against him 
was here directed. Nobody indeed can be so pure- 
minded as a critic when he fancies he has an oppor- 
tunity to vent on this ground his dislike of an author. 
In particular, the volume entitled 'The Story of 
Rimini,' which had come out in 1816, was subjected to 
the most virulent denunciation. In his zeal for purity, 
the reviewer wrought himself up almost to a frenzy 
which has now a distinctly comical aspect. It was in 
the following chastened style that his third article 
began. ''Our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt as 
a writer," it said, "is not so much owing to his shame- 
less irreverence to his aged and afflicted king — to his 
profligate attacks on the character of his king's sons — 
to his low-born insolence to that aristocracy with 
whom he would in vain claim the alliance of one illus- 
trious friendship — to his paid panderism to the vilest 
passions of that mob of which he is himself a fire- 
brand — to the leprous crust of self-conceit with which 
his whole moral being is indurated — to that loathsome 
vulgarity which constantly clings round him like a 
vermined garment from St. Giles' — to that irritable 
temper which keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of 
his vanity, in a perpetual fret with himself and all the 
world beside, and that shews itself equally in his 
deadly enmities and capricious friendships, — our 
hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so 
much owing to these and other causes, as to the odious 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 117 

and unnatural harlotry of his polluted muse."^ This 
is a good illustration of the methods of criticism much 
in vogue in the early part of the nineteenth century in 
even the highest literary periodicals. Delicacy of 
satire, incisiveness, point, were qualities rarely dis- 
played. Instead was a kind of personal attack, slang- 
whanging, vociferous, brutal. There were doubtless 
those who then considered it powerful criticism. 

The first three numbers of the articles on the Cock- 
ney School had been devoted to Hunt, for the sake of 
attacking whom the whole series had evidently been 
undertaken. But as one man could not well be turned 
into a school, it was necessary to have some one else 
to assail. Shelley and others were under considera- 
tion ; but the choice fell at last upon Keats. He was a 
personal friend of Hunt's, he had been praised by him, 
and in turn had written lines in his praise. Accord- 
ingly he was selected as the second subject of abuse. 
The volume of his 'Poems' which had appeared in 
1817 had been followed by 'Endymion' in 1818. These 
two furnished the pretext for the criticism which was 
directed not against the works but against the man. 
The article- began with a discourse on the wide preva- 
lence of the poetical malady which was raging uncon- 
trolled through the land. The case of Keats in partic- 
ular was distressing. ''This young man," said the 
reviewer, ''appears to have received from nature 
talents of an excellent, perhaps even of a superior 
order — talents which, devoted to the purposes of any 

1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine, ' Vol. Ill, p. 453. 
2 Ihid., Vol. Ill, pp. 519-524. 



118 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

useful profession, must have rendered Mm a respect- 
able, if not an eminent citizen." He then went on to 
observe that Keats had been destined to the career of 
medicine, and had been apprenticed some years before 
to a worthy apothecary. But all his prospects had 
been undone by a sudden attack of the poetical malady, 
though from what cause was unknown. "Whether 
Mr. John," he continued, ''had been sent home with a 
diuretic or composing draught to some patient far 
gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. ' ' How- 
ever, the mischief was done, and of late the symptoms 
had been terrible. ' ' The phrenzy of the ' Poems, ' " he 
added, ''was bad enough in its way; but it did not 
alarm us half so seriously as the calm, settled, imper- 
turbable, drivelling idiocy of Endymion. ' ' The rest of 
the article is very much in the same style as this choice 
beginning. ' ' Mr. Hunt, ' ' said the reviewer, " is a small 
poet, but he is a clever man. Mr. Keats is a still 
smaller poet, and he is only a boy of pretty abilities 
which he has done everything in his power to spoil." 
The article concluded with this piece of advice. "It 
is a better and a wiser thing," said the critic, "to be 
a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to 
your shop Mr. John, back to 'plasters, pills, and oint- 
ment boxes,' etc. But for Heaven's sake, young San- 
grado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and 
soporifics in your practice than you have been in your 
poetry. ' ' 

It is safe to say that nothing more coarsely and 
vulgarly abusive ever appeared under the guise of 
criticism in what purported to be a respectable periodi- 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 119 

cal. Equally is it true that nothing more insolent was 
ever written by a man of talent about a man of genius ; 
for there is really little doubt of the correctness of the 
general opinion which then and since has ascribed 
the authorship of these articles to Lockhart. Where 
the secret has been so jealously guarded absolute proof 
cannot be furnished. At a later period no one could 
have been found anywhere eager to claim the credit 
of the attack on Keats. Indeed it is fair to say that 
even at the time itself there were those who perhaps 
sympathizing with the views expressed in the article 
had yet the grace to be ashamed of its character. 
Naturally the admirers of Lockhart — ^never a numerous 
body — have been anxious in later days to relieve him 
of the discredit of having written it. But the utmost 
they can say for their view is that the charge is *'not 
proven." That indeed might be expected to be the 
case. Still the evidence is morally convincing. The 
articles signed Z. have all the characteristics of his 
style. The opinions expressed in them are the opinions 
he expressed elsewhere. As late as 1828 in his review 
of or rather invective against Leigh Hunt's 'Lord 
Byron and Some of his Contemporaries,' he remarked 
in referring to Keats that * * our readers have probably 
forgotten all about ' Endymion, a poem, ' and the other 
works of this young man, the all but universal roar of 
laughter with which they were received some ten or 
twelve years ago."^ He also spoke of * Endymion' as 
one of a number of volumes already ''sunk to the 
bottom of the waters of oblivion." In fact, there are 

1' Quarterly Eeview,' Vol. XXXVII, p. 416, March, 1828. 



120 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

certain phrases in this review which are almost 
identical \vith those contained previously in the ' Black- 
wood' article. Furthermore, as will be found later, 
these opinions about Keats were repeated in his 
review of Tennyson. 

It is to the credit of the sense of shame of the con- 
tributors to 'Blackwood' that those connected with 
the magazine never conceded the fact of any particular 
person being designated as the author of these scur- 
rilous articles. They invariably denied the imputation 
with blushing truth or unblushing mendacity. Often 
they were hard put to it. Maginn, for instance, 
writing to William Blackwood from London in 1823 
tells him of having met Croly. ''I dined with him," 
he said, "in company with an insufferable wretch of 

the name of , who knows everything of *Maga' 

that Croly knows, and who boasts of enjoying the 
confidence of L." By L. he meant Lockhart. "I 
hope," he continued, ''this is impossible, for the 
creature conducts some unheard-of paper in London, 
and is one of the press gang. He told me many other 
things, that he knew L. to be Z., for he had it from his 
own lips. Surely L. could not be such a spoony."^ 
Maginn lied like a good comrade. He denied flatly this 
assertion of the authorship, and in the lack of a more 
satisfactory place to put the writer, he insisted that 
there was reason to believe that the person who signed 
himself Z. was at that time in Germany. 

The point, however, which concerns us here more 
particularly, is, that this notice of Keats in 'Black- 

1 'William Blackwood and his Sons,' by Mrs. Oliphant, Vol. I, p. 397. 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 121 

wood' for August, 1818, was followed the next month 
by a review of 'Endymion' which appeared in the 
thirty-seventh number of the * Quarterly.' This num- 
ber, to be sure, bears the date of April. It was, how- 
ever, not actually published until towards the close 
of September, ^The Quarterly Eeview' in those days 
being usually as much behind the times in its date of 
publication as it was in its views. ^ The author of the 
article is conceded to have been John Wilson Croker. 
It consisted of but four pages. The critic began by 
honestly confessing that he had been unable to read 
'Endymion' through. He had made efforts, he said, 
as superhuman as the story itself appeared to be, to 
finish it, but he had found it impossible to struggle 
beyond the first of the four books. He had the conso- 
lation, however, of knowing that he was no better 
acquainted with the meaning of the book through 
which he had painfully toiled, than with that of the 
three into which he had not looked. He affected to 
doubt that Keats was actually the name of the poet, 
for he could hardly believe that a man in his senses 
would put his real name to such a rhapsody. He did 
not indeed deny that the author had powers of lan- 
guage, rays of fancy, and gleams of genius; but he 
was a disciple of the new school of what had some- 
where been called cockney poetry. This, he added, 
**may be defined to be the most incongruous ideas in 
the most uncouth language." As the disciple of this 

1 No. CXVII advertised as published this day in the ' London Chroni- 
cle' of September 26. It had previously been advertised as about to be 
published in the issue of September 23, and September 25. 



122 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

new school Keats was a copyist of Leigh Hunt, but 
more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, 
and ten times more tiresome and absurd than his 
prototype. 

Though this review was contemptuous throughout, 
it contained nothing of the personal scurrility which 
disgraced the article in 'Blackwood.' On the whole, 
too, it was inferior to the latter in interest and power. 
But it shows the far higher estimate held by the quar- 
terly over the monthly periodical that the attack in 
the former was far more noted then and indeed has 
remained so ever since. To this day it has steadily 
served as one of the most conspicuous stock examples 
to show the malignant and absurd criticism which 
often distinguished that periodical. At the time, it 
was celebrated by Byron as having caused the death 
of Keats. It called forth the indignant monody of 
Shelley on his dead friend. But while the article in 
the 'Quarterly' created all this sensation, the still 
more vituperative and much longer one in 'Black- 
wood' attracted but comparatively little attention 
from contemporaries. Nor has it excited much com- 
ment in later times. This result was not at all due to 
the superiority of the former. It was really deter- 
mined by the respective positions in popular estima- 
tion held by the two classes of publications. The 
unfortunate thing for the periodicals in which the 
attacks upon Keats appeared, was not their brutality, 
nor their insolence, but the obtuseness of critical 
perception which characterized them, the incapacity 
to comprehend that a great poet had made his appear- 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 123 

ance. It tends to produce gloomy views of the general 
banality of criticism to find two of the most noted 
reviewers of the time speaking of a sky-soarer like 
Keats as being the disciple of a twitterer of the hedges 
like Leigh Hunt. 

It has been fashionable in these later days among 
men who have never read a line of his writings to 
talk contemptuously of Jeffrey's criticism, as if the 
supremacy in this particular which he acquired and 
maintained among the giants of the Georgian era was 
somehow due to fortuitous circumstances. Here is not 
the place to discuss his merits or demerits. But it 
increases immensely one's respect for his literary 
perspicacity to find him a little later than the appear- 
ance of the review in the * Quarterly' declaring of 
'Endymion' that with all the obscure, unnatural, and 
absurd passages to be found in it, he who would 
represent the whole poem as despicable must either 
have no notion of poetry or no regard for the truth. 
He went further and added that he did not know of 
any book which he would sooner employ as a test to 
ascertain whether any one had in him a native relish 
for poetry and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic 
charm. Jeffrey not merely recognized the genius of 
Keats, but had no hesitation in proclaiming it — an 
easy thing to do twenty or thirty years later, but then 
evident to but few, and certain to meet with unqualified 
dissent from many and perhaps most. We know how 
bitterly Byron resented this particular review of 
'Endymion' by Jeffrey, for he had been irritated to 
the depths of his soul by the contemptuous opinion 



124 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

expressed by Keats of his own poetic god, Pope. His 
words furnish a still further illustration of the all- 
commanding position occupied by the periodical over 
which that critic presided. "Nobody," he wrote to 
Murray in 1820, ''could be prouder of the praises of 
the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to their cen- 
sure, as I showed in E[nglish] B[ards] and S[cotch] 
R[eviewers]. At present all the men they have ever 
praised are degraded by that insane article." Byron 
did not, but both Lockhart and Croker did, live long 
enough to see their judgments contemptuously spurned 
by the cultivated public; yet it is a satisfaction to 
know that at the time itself their verdict was almost 
disdainfully set aside by him whom his contemporaries 
generally recognized as the supreme arbiter of poetic 
ability. 

Any survey taken of the critical literature of any 
period almost inevitably leads to a depreciatory esti- 
mate of its character. Every generation has always 
the fullest confidence in its own judgment. It is 
perfectly convinced that the decisions it has reached 
about the merits of the authors of the past supersede 
all that have gone before, and will be recognized as 
binding by those who follow after. It therefore takes 
but little interest in the attitude of previous genera- 
tions, save perhaps to wonder at their folly, to point 
out their blunders, and to indulge as a consequence 
in an exalted sense and patronizing display of its own 
superiority. It is perhaps inevitable that this feeling 
should prevail; certainly it will after familiarizing 
one's self with the opinions about the authors which 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 125 

held sway during this period of transition. AVere we 
to draw general conclusions from the specific data 
furnished by the literary organs of that time, we 
should be forced to take the ground that contemporary 
criticism, at least of works of the imagination, was 
the most untrustworthy and valueless occupation to 
which the human mind can devote itself. Few as were 
then the successes of those concerned with the pro- 
duction of creative literature, they far outnumber the 
successes of those who sat in judgment upon them. 
It is not that the works which are now never heard of 
were then eulogized in the most glowing terms, and 
works which the world cherishes now among its price- 
less possessions were either cavalierly dismissed, or 
inadequately noticed, or were spoken of in the most 
depreciatory terms. This is characteristic of every 
period. But the critics of that day professed that they 
were looking earnestly for successors to the great 
writers of the previous period. Yet they were unable 
to discover the rise of any new poetical luminaries 
above the horizon. The trouble with them was that 
they could not recognize them after they were risen. 
There is a curious disagreement between the conclu- 
sions reached about authors and their works by the 
reviewers of that time and the conclusions in regard 
to the same writers and writings wliich soon came to 
be held generally by cultivated readers and continue 
to be so held to-day. And it made no difference 
apparently from what quarter the criticism came. 
The wisest and greatest of men were often as much 
subject to aberration in their views, were as much 



126 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

struck by judicial blindness as the obscurest and least 
esteemed. 

Let us, however, be just to the critical fraternity 
of this period who shared in certain of the disadvan- 
tages of critics of all periods, besides having some 
special disabilities of their own. There is of course 
the personal equation which leads one man to look 
with indifference upon what the vast majority of men 
passionately admire. But far greater than this is the 
difficulty that attends him who is compelled to give 
speedily a fair and just judgment of a work which 
necessarily requires for honest appreciation that 
thorough familiarity which is begot of frequent 
examination and of examination in different states 
of mind. This is true of every single poem of any 
length. But when it comes to a collection of short 
poems, the task of judging becomes infinitely harder. 
** There is no forming a true estimate," wrote Words- 
worth, ''of a volume of small poems by reading them 
all together ; one stands in the way of the other. They 
must either be read a few at once, or the book must 
remain some time by one, before a judgment can 
be made of the quantity of thought and feeling and 
imagery it contains, and what variety of moods of 
mind it can either impart or is suited to." This is a 
condition of things that must always confront the 
critic who has to bring out his notice at a particular 
time, or under the urgency of early demand. No 
matter how diligent and open-minded he may be, he is 
always heavily handicapped by the inadequacy of his 
opportunity to gain full appreciation of what he has 



CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 127 

under consideration. Furthermore, in consequence of 
the haste and pressure under which he is constantly- 
compelled to form and express opinions, the con- 
scientious reviewer is inevitably haunted by the fear 
that his judgment may be imposed upon by something 
which has about it for him the attraction or repulsion 
of novelty, either in its matter or in the manner of its 
treatment. This may lead him in one case to undue 
disparagement; or what in his eyes is far worse, it 
may induce him to attribute to the work under consid- 
eration an excellence which cannot stand the test of 
close familiarity. The cautious critic is therefore 
inclined to express himself with reserve, if not with 
coolness, even when most favorably disposed; for he 
feels that while it may turn out, unfortunately as 
regards himself, that the primrose he fancies he has 
chanced to meet by the river's brim, may be a good 
deal more than a primrose, still in the vast majority 
of instances it is much safer for him to treat it as a 
primrose and nothing more, and not mistake it for 
a giant sequoia. 



CHAPTER V 

THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 

PERIOD 

Pakt Two 
Surviving Reputations of the Georgian Era 

By 1830 the great Georgian era had reached its 
close. The force of the mighty intellectual outburst, 
which had lasted for a third of a century, had been 
spent. The men who had set it in motion or had 
carried it forward had largely passed away. Those 
of them who survived no longer poured forth inspira- 
tion. There was an interregnum, not infrequent in 
literary history, between the spirit that had gone out 
and the spirit that was to come in. The throne of 
letters was vacant. 

The greatest of the younger race of this vanishing 
era had all found early graves. Keats had died at 
the age of twenty-five, Shelley at the age of thirty, 
Byron at the age of thirty-six. There were still a 
number alive of the mightiest of the older generation, 
but as a rule their creative activity had ceased. Scott 
was already entering the valley of the shadow of death. 
Coleridge was moralizing or monologizing in the 
Gilman villa at Highgate. Wordsworth was now 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 129 

beginning to rejoice in the fulness of his fame; but 
his fame was based upon his early work, and was not 
increased, nor was it to be increased by anything he 
was now producing or destined to produce. Of the 
men of the second rank Crabbe was approaching four- 
score and was incapable of further exertion. Camp- 
bell, Hunt, Landor, Moore, Rogers, and Southey were 
to live longer, some of them much longer; but their 
work was henceforth mainly confined to prose, or in 
most cases might better have been restricted to it when 
it was not. 

To take the place of those who were gone, or who 
were still on the stage but with their work accom- 
plished, there were no men of promise looming up. 
So assuredly it seemed to the critics of that time. 
They scanned the horizon near and far — at least they 
said so — in search of some new luminary; but in no 
quarter could they find anything to reward their wist- 
ful gaze. A feeling of this sort continued during the 
whole of the decade from 1830 to 1840. In truth, it 
largely extended down to 1850. Even before the 
earlier date it had manifested its existence. ''Since 
the death of Lord Byron," wrote Jeffrey in 1828, 
''there has been no Idng in Israel; and none of his 
former competitors now seem inclined to push their 
pretensions to the vacant throne. Scott and Moore 
and Southey appear to have nearly renounced verse, 
and finally taken service with the Muses of prose; — 
and Crabbe and Coleridge and Wordsworth, we fear, 
are burnt out; — and Campbell and Rogers repose 
under their laurels, and, contented each with his own 



130 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

elegant little domain, seem but little disposed either 
to extend its boundaries, or to add new provinces to 
their rule.'" At the period this was written, there 
could hardly have been an exacter picture of the 
situation. 

Views to the same effect, but even gloomier, came 
a few years later from the leading critic of 'Black- 
wood's Magazine.' ''All the great schools seem 
effete," said Christopher North. . . . "All the Sacred 
Band have done their best — their all — but on the 
horizon I see not the far-off coming light of the fore- 
heads of a new generation of poets. That dawn will 
rise over our graves — perhaps not till the forlorn ^hic 
jacet' on our tomb-stones is in green obliteration. The 
era has been glorious — that includes Cowper and 
Wordsworth, Burns and Byron. From what region 
of man's spirit shall break a new dayspring of Song? 
The poetry of that long era is instinct with passion — 
and, above all, with the love of nature. I know not 
from what fresh fountains the waters may now flow — 
nor can I imagine what hand may unlock them, and 
lead them on their mazy wanderings over the still 
beautiful flowers and herbage of the daedal earth — 
the world of sense and of soul. The future is all 
darkness. ' '^ 

Such was the melancholy view of the situation taken 
in the North. From the South came the same wail 
of woe. No matter whether the review reflected Whig 
or Tory opinions or was purely literary, a similar 

1 'Edinburgh Eeview,' September, 1828, Vol. XL VIII, pp. 47-48. 
2 ' Noetes Ambrosianae, ' ' Blackwood 's Magazine, ' February, 1832. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 131 

doleful commentary is to be found. In 1834 * The New 
Monthly Magazine' assured us that the condition of 
literature seemed anything but progressive. '*In the 
department of poetry, ' ' it said, ' ' we have had nothing 
for several years worth mentioning. A desultory 
effusion now and then finds its way into the periodical 
journals, as if to show that the fire of genius is not as 
yet wholly extinct amongst us. But no poem of any 
length or character has lately seen the light in this 
country.'" Again and again spoke to the same effect 
the Tory organ, 'Fraser's Magazine.' In 1834 in a 
review of 'The Poets of the Day,' the critic summed 
up briefly his estimate by declaring it to be *'sad 
work." *'We recollect," the writer went on to say, 
*'who were they who once in our time gave us some- 
thing worth reading, and we sorrowfully look for them 
or their like in vain. Has our poetry departed from 
us; and are we sunk to an age of criticism — an age 
which never affords anything worthy of being criti- 
cised?" *'One by one," he said on another occasion, 
''these 'mighty masters' have fallen asleep, or ceased 
to touch their deep-toned lyres." The prospect was 
dismal. "No sun, no moon," he added, "no stars in 
their poetical heavens — nothing but a miserable 
sprinkling of wretched glow-worms." A ray of light, 
however, came to cheer this despondent soul. He had 
discovered in one of the contributors to the magazine 
a writer who was to redeem the period. He had 
written "one of the noblest poems with which modern 
genius has enriched our language and nation — perhaps 

1 April, 1834, Vol. XL, p. 498. 



132 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the noblest poem since the days of Milton. ' '^ This was 
an epic entitled ' The Judgment of the Flood. ' Modern 
men have largely forgotten not merely the existence 
of this great work, but even the name of him who 
wrote it. Its author was John Abraham Heraud, who 
in course of time subsided from the position of suc- 
cessor to Milton in order to become a subordinate 
editor of a London periodical. But even a temporary 
ray of hope from that quarter was insufficient to 
alleviate the sorrows of the then leading critical 
weekly, 'The Literary Gazette.' Much to the wrath 
of its monthly contemporary, it refused to find in 
Heraud the coming literary regenerator of the race. 
Its \dew in consequence was altogether despondent. 
**We neither lack poetry," it said, ''nor the taste for 
poetry, but we lack poets. ' ' 

Let it not be fancied that these are merely scattered 
expressions of individual opinion laboriously extracted 
from the critical literature of the period. Sentiments 
of a precisely similar character can be found every- 
where in the reviews of the day — indeed, it is safe to 
say in every article that dealt directly or indirectly 
with works which are designed to appeal to the reader 
for beauty of style or for expression of intense feeling. 
There was a universal lament that literature in its 
higher forms met with but slight encouragement; in 
poetry, its highest form, it met with none at all. Pub- 
lishers were chary about bringing out volumes of 
verse by unknown men. They complained too that 
the productions of men already well and widely known 

1 Vol. IX, p. 534, May, 1834. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 133 

did not pay their expenses. ' ' Sufficient for our day is 
tlie mediocrity thereof, ' ' said in 1832 the same critical 
weekly already cited. '* There is no encouragement 
for higher efforts. Literature has become a mere 
traffic, and Shakespeare and Milton as a property at 
three and a half per cent would be rejected for Tomp- 
kins and Jenkins at four." This was the voice of the 
weeklies. The quarterlies were just as pronounced in 
their opinion. In an article on Taylor's 'Philip Van 
Artevelde,' 'The Edinburgh Review' characterized 
the time as " a period of marked indifference to poeti- 
cal productions."^ The same attitude was taken by 
the monthlies. "Many a well-educated man," said 
'Fraser's Magazine,' "can no more read poetry than 
he can Chinese. The neglect, not to say contempt, of 
the muses, now in fashion, bids fair to render this 
Parnassian illiteracy universal. ' '^ These are no single 
utterances; they are selected from a large number 
which can be found scattered through the periodicals 
of the period. There was assuredly so much justifica- 
tion for the gloomy views here expressed of the 
literary situation that from 1830 to 1842 not a single 
volume of poetry which has continued to survive paid 
then the expenses of its publication. Ten to twenty 
years before the former date, verse, at least the verse 
of great authors, was as a rule more salable than prose. 
The disposition in consequence was not unnatural to 
dwell upon the glories of the period which had just 
gone by, and to contrast with them the mournful 

1 ' Edinburgh Eeview, ' October, 1834. 
2'Fraser's Magazine,' December, 1834. 



134 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

realities of the present. Those times are past, said 
as late as 1839 a writer in 'The Edinburgh Eeview,* 
*'and no visible tokens seem to announce their return. 
Even while many of our best poets are yet alive, 
poetry herself is dead or entranced."^ 

It is not necessary indeed to limit this despairing 
sort of utterance to the period in question. It occurs 
in English literature at intermittent intervals. Pretty 
certainly it has recurred in all literature since the 
inscription of hieroglyphics on Egyptian monuments. 
Of the little estimation in which poetry was held in 
England at this particular time, as compared with 
prose, there can be however no question. It was the 
view taken by writers generally, whether critical or 
creative, during the twenty years which followed the 
death of Byron. The fact of the unpopularity of 
poetry was generally conceded ; the reasons given for 
the fact ranged all the way from the non-existence of 
dictators to the levelling influences caused by the 
spread of democracy. Authority for all sorts of 
different and differing views can be found on every 
side. It may not be fair to cite Wordsworth, for he 
had not much respect for any of the poetry produced 
in the previous era except his own. During its most 
brilliant period, had it not been for himself, he would 
have been discouraged by the outlook. Naturally he 
was much more despondent in these latter days. One 
of his visitors observed to him in 1833 that amidst the 
great political agitations of the times through which 
they had been passing, poetry seemed to have died out 

1 Vol. LXVIII, p. 335. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 135 

entirely. Wordsworth admitted that this was true but 
insisted that it was not the only cause. There had 
been, he said, an overproduction, and in consequence 
a surfeit.^ 

As already intimated, many and varied were the 
reasons then given for the general decay of interest 
in poetry. A common one was the blight of democracy. 
This from its very nature was asserted to be deadly 
to literature and the arts. One of its consequences 
was that poetry received no longer patronage from 
men of rank. Another reason given was the growth 
of the utilitarian spirit. Still another was the wide 
and constantly increasing interest in novels and their 
consequent prevalence. But of the many different 
explanations constantly brought forward two stand 
out prominently. One is general, the other specific. 
There were those who attributed the conceded lack 
of interest in poetry to the astounding progress of 
scientific investigation and the wonders it had accom- 
plished. The extraordinary physical discoveries of 
later years, it was asserted, by throwing further and 
further back the boundaries of the world of practical 
science, and realizing its most visionary conceptions, 
had rendered cheap and vulgar the wonders of the 
imagination. The days of romance had in consequence 
gone by. Nothing was to be looked forward to but the 
reign of utility. The achievements of science, it was 
maintained, tended to substitute interest in the marvels 
it performed for the interest which had once belonged 
to the creations of the mind. Such a theory, it is clear, 

iW. Knight's 'Life of Wordsworth,' Vol. Ill, p. 238. 



136 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

presaged, if true, the utter ruin which was eventually 
to overtake all literature. 

For those who were not disposed to accept as a 
satisfactory explanation this dismal view, there was 
for the earlier part of this period what has already 
been suggested as a reason frequently advanced for 
the decline of poetic production and for the disregard 
of it when produced. Exciting political questions had 
loomed up into a prominence they had never held 
before. They took not merely the first but an almost 
exclusive place in the minds of men. In the early part 
of the period under discussion, interest in them had 
been intensified by the excitement of the July days 
in Paris, where less than a week had sufficed to crumble 
into dust the laborious masonry of the Holy Alliance, 
and to fill Europe with unrest, and with doubt as to 
what the future had in store. This had been followed 
in England by the reform agitation, whose approach 
had been felt before even its outlines could be detected 
in visible shape, and whose presence, when it actually 
came, engrossed the thoughts of men and stirred their 
hearts with alternate hopes and fears. Against the 
all-absorbing interest in questions which involved the 
happiness of the individual and of the race, how could 
poetry hope to maintain itself? But when the same 
indifference continued to be manifested after the 
storm had passed away, and men had fallen into their 
old routine, nothing was left the believers in this 
particular cause but the conviction expressed by 
Wordsworth that there had been an overproduction 
and the consequent surfeit had cloyed the appetite. 



EEPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 137 

Again and again was the remark repeated that scores 
and even hundreds of books existed in manuscript that 
would do honor to the country and the age, but for 
which publication could not be secured. 

Observations of this sort have been given, not 
because of their truth, but of their prevalence. They 
are the very same which are heard during every 
literary interregnum when the old poetic spirit has 
been worn out and the new has not yet embodied itself, 
or at least has not yet become distinctly recognizable. 
It may be indeed that after a period of great intel- 
lectual fertility the human mind actually needs and 
demands a season in which to lie fallow in order to 
recruit its exhausted energies. Even if production 
continues, it is apt to be of a different character, as 
if the principle of the rotation of crops were as true 
applied to the brain as it is to the soil. Nor will the 
correctness of such an inference be seriously impaired 
because some sporadic and shining example of vigorous 
growth shoots up in contrast to the general barren- 
ness. But whether the theory be well founded or not, 
there is no question as to the prevalence at this time 
of those dolorous forecasts about the future of litera- 
ture, especially of the highest form of it, which 
regularly follow the subsidence of every period of 
great creative activity. The old utterances again 
recur in almost the same words. There is no outlook 
for the continuance of poetry, we are told; no hope 
for its proper appreciation. If offered, it will not be 
published; if published, it cannot be sold. This may 
be true on a small scale. But the valuable works which 



138 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

continue to exist in manuscript form a body of litera- 
ture, about the greatness of which the mind grows 
increasing skeptical with advancing years. 

There seems also to have been during the period 
under discussion a general agreement on the part of 
the critics that the condition of things just depicted 
was entirely the fault of the readers and not at all 
that of the writers. It apparently did not occur to 
any one of those complaining of the indifference of the 
public, that the public had a right to be indifferent; 
that the reason it did not read the new works of the 
old masters was largely because they were not worth 
reading. In truth, it may in some slight measure 
reconcile us to the early death of Keats and Shelley 
and Byron when we consider how little of value was 
produced by any of their great contemporaries after 
reaching the age the most long-lived of these three 
attained. The reputation of their survivors rests 
mainly upon what they did, either in youth or before 
youth had fully passed away. Not that occasional 
sparks of inspiration did not flash forth afterward; 
but in the case of most, the poetic fire had almost 
wholly abated or vanished entirely. The history of 
the great authors of the older Georgian generation 
who, though advancing towards later life, were still, 
in 1830, in the full possession of intellectual force, 
bears extraordinary testimony to the truth already 
stated that great poetic performance belongs usually 
to the period of comparative youth. They produced 
but little ; and the little they produced was in general 
worth little. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 139 

There were still several members of the older 
generation that were more or less actively engaged 
in literary production in 1830, and in the decade or 
decades following. They all continued to occupy a 
high position in the eyes of the public. Those of them 
who at that period were most conspicuous were Moore, 
Campbell, Wordsworth, and Southey, to whom is to 
be added for the brief time he lived, Coleridge. There 
was another group that ranked then lower in the 
general estimation, though each of them had a body 
of admirers and followers of his own, who rated him 
in some cases higher than most of those just mentioned. 
The members of this second group were Landor, 
Leigh Hunt, and Rogers. It can be said justly of the 
five mentioned of the first group, that whatever poetic 
reputation they had achieved, they had achieved long 
before. They were not to add to it by anything they 
produced after. In the case of Moore the decline of 
production was due rather to the distraction of other 
pursuits than to any actual failure of such ability as 
he possessed. Still in a general way his career bears 
out the truth of the proposition that the work which 
made the men of the elder generation famous was the 
work of the first half of their lives. Moore did not 
die till 1852. His 'Lalla Rookh' was brought out in 
1817 when he was thirty-eight years old. The poetry 
he produced after that date is now so little read that 
it can hardly be said to enjoy that quasi-distinction 
which consists in being read about. 

Much more marked, however, in this respect was 
the case of Campbell, who was still a prominent lit- 



140 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

erary figure in 1830, and did not die until 1844. During 
the period between these years he was living largely 
upon his past reputation; so far as posterity is con- 
cerned, he was living entirely upon it. He was in 
1830, and had been for some time before, the editor 
of 'The New Monthly Magazine'; but to the fortunes 
of that periodical he contributed nothing but his name. 
The wits of 'Blackwood' used to declare that every 
month the reader was allured by the pleasures of hope, 
but it invariably ended for him in the pains of 
possession. The truth about him was voiced by 
'Eraser's Magazine' -with all the brutality of its early 
utterance. It expressed regret that he did not die 
after the publication of 'Gertrude of Wyoming.' 
*'Had he had such good fortune," it said, "we should 
have had the imaginations of the whole world in his 
favour, fancying what he might have done, had he 
lived, to enhance to extravagance the value of what 
he had then done."^ In truth, a good deal of Camp- 
bell's later life was, what he once incidentally called 
a portion of it, "serious idleness." The works by 
which his name sur\dves belong almost exclusively 
to the period of his youth. He was bom in 1777. At 
the age of twenty-two he sprang at once into fame 
with the publication of 'The Pleasures of Hope.' 
Between 1799, the year in which that poem appeared, 
and 1810, when 'O'Connor's Child' came out, nearly 
all of the poetry, upon which his fame is based, was 
produced. Two or three short pieces are at most all 
that is much read now of the works he composed during 

1 'Fraser's Magazine,' June, 1830, Vol. I, p. 563. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 141 

the more than thirty years which made up the rest of 
his life. It was a sort of carpentering at literature 
in which he henceforth engaged. He wrote criticism; 
he wrote history; he wrote travels; he wrote biog- 
raphy ; he edited magazines ; but he produced no great 
creative work. In his case the soil was in a certain 
way rich, but it was also very thin. The growth of one 
crop exhausted it. This cannot be said of Coleridge 
now drawing towards the grave ; yet in this particular 
there was a marked similarity in the lives of the two 
men. Coleridge was born in 1772, and his career as 
a producer of poetry, which is now read and studied, 
may be said to have ended in 1802; for though some 
of his finest pieces, as for instance, 'Kubla Khan' and 
' Christabel, ' were published many years after the 
latter date, they had been written many years before 
they appeared in print. 

In 1830 the position of Wordsworth at the head of 
living English poets was generally recognized, though 
in some quarters the old prejudice survived. Still, he 
had now reached that degree of popularity that every 
new work he put forth was hailed by the entire critical 
press with respectful approval if not with enthusiastic 
commendation. Yet it is as true of bim as it is of the 
others that he had long ceased to produce anything 
by which he is now generally known and admired. 
What is greatest in his production belongs to the 
period of youth. Matthew Arnold was one of the most 
thoroughgoing of his partisans. He was willing to 
rank him just below Milton, and with true British 
insularity placed him, with the exception of G-oethe, 



142 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

above all the writers of the Continent after the death 
of Moliere. Yet he insists that it was between 1798 
and 1808 that Wordsworth not only produced nearly 
everything by which he is now remembered, but nearly 
everything which is worthy of remembrance. This 
must be regarded as a pretty extravagant way of 
putting things ; yet, when we take into account certain 
poems which appeared in the edition of 1815, it is to 
be conceded that the larger part of his best work was 
produced within the limits Arnold set. 

One exception there was at the opening of the fourth 
decade of the century to the general indifference 
which was manifested towards poetry and poets. 
This was furnished by Lord Byron. Against his all- 
conquering personality the partisans of other authors 
had made little headway during his life. The circum- 
stances of his death had tended to retard the approach 
of that depreciatory estimate which is fairly certain 
to overtake, for a time at least, any exceedingly popular 
writer, when once the ascendency and sway exercised 
by his living presence have been withdrawn. Conse- 
quently, though Byron had been dead several years, 
his influence still dominated literature. It long con- 
tinued to prevail over that of the greatest of the 
contemporaries who survived him. In his case, too, 
if interest in him and his fortunes had at all begun to 
wane, it was revived at this very time by the publica- 
tion of his letters accompanied by Moore's biography, 
which brought again vividly before the public the 
incidents of his stormy and checkered career. 

Few at the present day have the slightest conception 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 143 

of the profound sensation which the death of Byron 
created in the whole of Europe. He was still young. 
He had barely passed the middle point of man's 
allotted life upon earth. About him there had been 
from the outset the fascination of brilliant personal 
achievement. What he did had in one way kept all 
Europe in a state of astonishment and awe; as in 
another way and in another sphere had been effected 
by Napoleon. There was time enough for him to 
accomplish much more. No one could imagine what 
new literary enterprises he might undertake, what 
new conquests he might achieve, when he suddenly 
passed away. The element of unexpectedness was 
reinforced by the circumstances under which he died. 
To the interest felt in him as a poet had been added 
the interest of chivalric adventure. He himself had 
always been in fullest intellectual sympathy with the 
party of progress. By the liberals of the Continent 
he was regarded as one of their leaders. The same 
position he had held while resident in England. No 
one who familiarizes himself with the newspapers of 
the time can fail to note that much of the personal 
hostility that beset Byron after the separation from 
his wife, and that followed him in his retreat from his 
native land, had been due to the character of his 
political opinions and utterances, which were pecu- 
liarly offensive to the Tory party then in the first flush 
of its triumph over Napoleon. The closing acts of his 
career had been in fullest harmony with the sentiments 
he professed. He had fallen while sharing in the 
struggle of a race to regain its lost liberties. The 



144 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

cause for which he gave up his life had for nearly a 
century enlisted the active interest of the whole 
educated class in Christendom. It now received a 
double consecration. To it the most brilliant poet of 
the century had fallen a martyr in the prime of life. 

It was inevitable therefore that the news of his 
sudden death should have come upon all Europe with 
a sense of shock. But if the sensation produced by it 
in other countries was great, it naturally reached its 
culmination in his own. He had been driven from it 
by unreasoning clamor. Yet his fame and influence 
grew with the distance which separated him from his 
native land, and with the time which elapsed without 
his revisiting it. He in turn had disowned it, he had 
unceasingly satirized it. Yet there can be little 
question that he gave expression to the deepest feel- 
ings of his heart, when, after declaring that it was 
possible for a man to make for himself anywhere a 
country, he went on to say: 

Yet I was born where men are proud to be, 
Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 
The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

Perchance I loved it well ; and if I lay 

My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 

My spirit shall resume it — if we may 

Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 

My hopes of being remembered in my line 

"With my land 's language : if too fond and far 

These aspirations in their scope incline, — 

If my fame should be, as my fortunes are. 

Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 145 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honored by the nations — let it be — 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me, 
' Sparta hath many a worthier son than he, ' 

In England where nearly the whole body of the 
younger men of letters recognized Byron as their liege 
lord, the excitement caused by his death was unprece- 
dented. There is plenty of evidence as to the existence 
of the impression created by it which can be found 
stated not merely in general terms, but given as the 
expression of individual feeling. Hazlitt in an article 
in 'The Edinburgh Review' for July, 1824, had spoken 
of the death of Shelley and of Keats. **To this band 
of immortals," he continued, '*a third has since been 
added — a mightier genius, a haughtier spirit, whose 
stubborn impatience and Achilles-like pride only death 
could quell. Greece, Italy, the world have lost their 
poet-hero; and his death has spread a wider gloom, 
and been recorded with a deeper awe than has waited 
on the obsequies of the many great who have died in 
our remembrance. Even detraction has been silent 
at his tomb; and the more generous of his enemies 
have fallen into the ranks of his mourners." The 
description which Tennyson gave of his own state of 
mind when he heard of the poet's death has already 
been recorded. 

Yet the enthusiastic worship of the boy pales before 
the avowal of her early feelings by the delicate and 
spiritual Mrs. Browning, while still Miss Barrett. 
She was an ardent but by no means indiscriminating 



146 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

admirer of Wordsworth. About him she had many 
controversies with her old friend and instructor, Hugh 
Stuart Boyd, who continued to retain at a later period 
the prejudices against that poet which had been 
prevalent in his youth. He admitted, however, on one 
occasion that she was liberal in conceding the merit 
of Byron's poetry. She resented the remark warmly. 
She would not be praised for acknowledging the 
excellence of works which she had always admired and 
loved, and always expected to admire and love. ' * Why, 
when I was a little girl," — this was said in 1842 — ''I 
used to think seriously of dressing up like a boy and 
running away to be Lord Byron's page."^ This would 
not have been hard to conceive in the case of some 
women ; but it is extraordinary in the view it gives of 
Byron's hold upon the public when it comes from the 
lips of a woman like Mrs. Browning. 

Feelings of this kind could not continue. The 
history of literature shows nothing more distinctly 
than the rise and fall of reputations, or perhaps it 
would be more correct to say, their oscillations from 
highest popularity to comparative neglect. This is not 
to say that any great poet is ever forgotten, even for 
a time, or that he ever fails to have somewhere a body 
of admirers and partisans ; only that there are certain 
periods when he occupies in the estimate of the great 
body of men a loftier position than he does at others. 
There are apt to be particular stages in the mental 
growth of an individual when he falls almost com- 

1 Letter to H. S. Boyd of December 4, 1842, in 'Letters of E. B. 
Browning,' Vol. I, p. 115. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 147 

pletely under the influence of some special writer. 
He admires him, he celebrates him, he vaunts his 
superiority to others ; if he himself writes, he is fairly 
certain to imitate him. But such states of mind are 
never likely to be permanent. The disciple may 
always continue to entertain regard for the man he 
once worshipped; but that exclusive regard which he 
felt gives way to a less enthusiastic and absorbing 
feeling. The truth is that there are poets suited to 
different periods in the lives of each of us, just as 
there are poets suited to the diiferent tastes and 
temperaments of all of us. 

What is true of the individual is true of a whole 
people. A great writer will make himself the special 
mouthpiece of a generation. To its hopes and fears, 
its aspirations, its vague longings, he will give their 
clearest and fullest expression. But when that par- 
ticular mood is passed — as in time it is destined to 
pass — he is certain to lose all that element of popu- 
larity which depends upon community of feeling and 
of sentiment. He must thenceforth depend upon the 
general power he has displayed, independent of the 
circumstances and the times which have given to his 
writings special vogue. In that he is sure to have 
rivals ; it is possible that he may have superiors. The 
revolutions of time and taste may bring, and in some 
cases are fairly sure to bring, him for a season some- 
thing of his old vogue; though it can hardly hope to 
make his influence a second time overwhelmingly 
predominant. Accordingly we can always rely upon 
the occasional recurrence of modified Byronic revivals. 



148 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

There are certain qualities in that poet which tend to 
make him a power among men, and at particular 
periods a great power. There are elements in his 
work wherein he scarcely finds a competitor. He 
brought to English literature a force and fire to which 
it had hitherto been a stranger; and beside the head- 
long impetuosity and tumultuous energy of his verse, 
the most strenuous efforts of other men seem often 
as tame and inadequate as the jets of water spouting 
from a fountain in a pleasure ground, compared with 
the rush and roar of a mighty mountain torrent 
plunging down to the valley from the regions of 
eternal snow. 

By 1830 the fame of Byron was just beginning to 
feel the influence of the change in popular taste. It 
still remained paramount indeed. It affected all 
classes and all grades of intellect. Men had come 
under it, and were continuing to come under it, who 
by the very bent of their minds were utterly unfitted 
to fall under its sway; who belonged not merely to 
another party but to a hostile party. Taylor, for 
instance, the author of 'Philip Van Artevelde,' was 
one of those persons whom nature designed for a 
Wordsworthian pure and simple. Yet he tells us that 
in his youth he was an enthusiastic admirer of Byron. 
Nay, more, he has carefully preserved for us and 
published a copy of a little Byronic poem, the sole 
survivor of a number of others of the same sort. The 
best of this poetry he produced was not bad in its 
kind, he assures us ; not indeed without a certain sort 
of fervor and beauty. Still, the specimen which was 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 149 

saved from the general wreck, though viewed with a 
good deal of fondness, and even pride by its author, 
is not such as to cause deep regret that the others, 
formed upon the same model, have perished. This 
early admiration of Byron came to be considered by 
Taylor morally stultifying; not in the sense that it 
was debasing, but because it supplanted for the time 
a more elevating admiration, which of course from his 
point of view was that of Wordsworth. 

These last words of Taylor are worthy of attention 
because they indicate the hostile attitude which was 
soon to be assumed towards Byron by large numbers. 
In 1830 he still remained the most potent force in 
literature. He was still the one whom nearly every 
youthful aspirant for poetic honors took consciously 
or unconsciously as his model. The adherents of other 
claimants to the throne of letters naturally felt called 
upon to denounce his pretensions, and in some cases 
to insist that he had no claim to the title of monarch 
at all. It ought not to be necessary — though it seems 
to be necessary — to say that it is as legitimate, as it 
is common, for any reader to feel and express the 
preference he entertains for one great author as com- 
pared with another. It implies nothing either for or 
against the degree of his intellectual development. 
The message — to use the most maudlin phrase which 
modern criticism has concocted — the message which 
a particular writer bears, may be that which will 
satisfy the demands of one nature, while to another 
it will convey little or nothing of interest or value. 
Even if the beauty of the verse meet with an Intel- 



150 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

lectual recognition, what the verse contains may 
supply no spiritual want. It is nothing strange that 
Wordsworth should be the favorite of some men, 
Byron the favorite of others, Shelley the favorite of 
still a third body. Such preference is objectionable 
only when the appreciation of one author is conjoined 
with the depreciation of another and a rival author. 
No writer acquires and continues to maintain a hold 
upon the cultivated public without the possession of 
great qualities. The favorable opinion of a large 
number of educated men is worth infinitely more than 
the hostile opinion of the very highest genius. Criti- 
cism that denies the reputation which has been 
accorded by the consent of one generation and con- 
firmed by the voice of following generations, serves 
little other purpose than to reveal the futility of 
criticism itself and the limitations of the critic. 

Accordingly, we must look at the literary situation 
as it existed then, not with our own eyes, but with the 
eyes of the men of 1830. At that time the movement 
against the hitherto unquestioned supremacy of Byron 
began to make effective manifestation of itself. Along 
with it an active propaganda was instituted in behalf 
of two very dissimilar poets, whose reputation, very 
high in limited circles, had nevertheless up to that 
time been largely confined to limited circles. One of 
them indeed had at last entered upon the fulness of 
his fame; the other was only beginning to loom into 
prominence. The former was Wordsworth, the latter 
was Shelley. Wide apart in many ways as were the 
views of the adherents of these two writers, there was 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 151 

one thing in which they agreed. They united in their 
hostility to the claims of the partisans of Byron. 
They did not dread each other; they dreaded the 
common foe. Shelley in particular, as being in most 
need of rehabilitation, became an object of enthusiastic 
advocacy. During the years that had elapsed since 
his death he had been by no means forgotten ; for from 
the very outset he had had a band of admirers. Still, 
in no sense of the phrase could he be said to be well 
known; in any proper sense he could hardly be said 
to be known at all. It is natural that revolutions in 
taste should display themselves most vigorously at 
great educational centers, if not there receive their 
origin. The present instance offers no exception. It 
was at Cambridge University during the term of 
Tennyson's residence that new critical standards had 
begun to be set up. Not unnaturally a movement 
started there into being, designed to further the spread 
of Shelley's reputation. It was one of the singular 
features connected with it that some of those most 
prominent in advocating his claims were equally 
uncompromising partisans of Wordsworth. The con- 
junction which would have profoundly shocked the 
elder poet was, at that time at least, rarely found 
elsewhere. 

It was in 1829 that Arthur Henry Hallam and a 
number of Shelley's other admirers caused his 
'Adonais' to be reprinted at Cambridge in an edition 
of five hundred copies ; for with the worship of Shelley 
was united the worship of the altogether less known 
Keats. This elegy on the death of the latter poet had 



152 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

been printed at Pisa in 1821. It was not till the little 
band of Cambridge enthusiasts reproduced it in the 
year just mentioned that it was brought out in Eng- 
land. In fact a not essentially dissimilar state of 
things was at that time true of most of Shelley's 
productions. He began his poetical career in 1816 
with the volume containing 'Alastor, or the Spirit 
of Solitude'; for the privately printed ^ Queen Mab' 
of 1813 may be disregarded. The 'Revolt of Islam' 
followed in 1818, 'Rosalind and Helen' and 'The 
Cenci' in 1819, 'Prometheus Unbound' in 1820, 
'Adonais' and ' Epipsychidion ' in 1821. Some of 
these were brought together in a single volume the 
year after his death, but very few of them ever went, 
strictly speaking, into a second edition. In truth, 
Shelley 's name, so far as it was known then, was much 
more associated in the minds of men with his atheis- 
tical utterances and his extreme social opinions than 
with his poetry. It is a significant fact that the one 
production of his which up to 1830 had gone through 
the largest number of editions was 'Queen Mab'; and 
'Queen Mab,' it is needless to say, appealed rather to 
the intellectual sinners than to the lovers of highest 
poetic art. Even later, the other works, in spite of 
frequent references to them in the critical literature 
of the day, were often very hard to obtain. 

There is one noted instance. The youthful Brown- 
ing chanced to come across in a collection of second- 
hand books exposed for sale, a volume which attracted 
his attention by being labelled "Mr. Shelley's Atheis- 
tical Poem, very scarce." He was so impressed by 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 153 

the hasty perusal he was able to give it that he 
implored his mother to procure for him all the pro- 
ductions of tliis author, of whom before he had never 
heard. It was no easy task to comply with his wishes. 
The local booksellers all shared in the boy's ignorance 
of the poet. They were no more familiar than he with 
the writer's name, nor did they know the titles of 
the works he had written. At last the volumes were 
secured at the shop of the Olliers in Vere Street, by 
whom most of them had been published. With the 
exception of 'The Cenci' all were first editions. 
Browning's experience illustrates with a fair degree 
of accuracy the general indifference about Shelley 
which existed on the part of the public. This had 
naturally the effect of stimulating the enthusiasm of 
his partisans. What they lacked in numbers they 
made up, as far as they could, in activity. In that 
brilliant circle which was just at this time assembled 
in Cambridge University, devotion to this poet was 
very intense. A Shelley cult was established there. 
It flourished for a while with both the vigor and the 
extravagance of youth. Its band of worshippers 
exalted to the highest place one who to the great body 
of readers was an unknown god. Like every mis- 
sionary propaganda, its first aim was to destroy the 
prevailing religion; and the prevailing religion was 
Byron. To proclaim the superiority of Shelley to 
Byron was accordingly a leading principle of the new 
creed. 

There is little doubt from their later utterances, that 
the Cambridge men of 1830 outgrew their enthusiasm 



154 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

and came in time to be amused by it themselves — in 
some instances in a very short time. But their 
enthusiasm was very earnest while it lasted. They 
set out to convert the world to their belief. The record 
of one of their enterprises has been preserved. 
Shelley had been illtreated, as they thought, by the 
authorities of the sister university. He had been 
expelled from it. He who was a glory to the institu- 
tion had received from it scant favor while he was 
an attendant upon it, and no recognition of his great- 
ness since. It struck these youthful admirers who 
belonged to the Cambridge Union, that it would be 
a good thing to go over to Oxford and hold a debate 
with the members of the Union there on the compara- 
tive merits of Shelley and Byron. Permission was 
sought for the undertaking from the Master of Trinity, 
Christopher Wordsworth, the brother of the poet. 
The delegation consisted of Arthur Henry Hallam, 
Eichard Monckton Milnes, and Thomas Sunderland. 
In his later year Milnes used to insinuate that it was 
not made perfectly clear to the venerable dignitary 
who presided over Trinity, whether it was the supe- 
riority of Shelley to Byron that they were going forth 
to maintain, or the superiority of Wordsworth to 
Byron. At all events, the permission was obtained. 
Early in December, 1829, they set out on their mission. 
It was then a long trip of ten hours by the post-chaise, 
and the pleasure of the journey was not increased by 
the fact that snow had fallen. On reaching Oxford 
they were entertained by the members of the rival 
Union. Of one of these Milnes wrote to his mother 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 155 

that he was sure he was a *'very superior person." 
This very superior person was young Mr. Gladstone 
of Liverpool. He, however, took no part in the 
discussion. 

The debate, we are told, went off in very fine style ; 
but as regards the impression produced, it must have 
been somewhat disappointing. According to the 
report of Milnes^ as late as 1866, the Cambridge 
delegation, in all the fervor of their early enthusiasm, 
had their feelings very much shocked and their vanity 
a good deal wounded to find that no one at Oxford 
knew anything at all about Mr. Shelley, either for 
good or ill. It was a mortifying fact to discover that 
no small number of the eighty or ninety young gentle- 
men of the Oxford Union, who sat sprucely dressed 
in chairs or lounged about the fireplace, fancied that 
it was Mr. Shenstone they had come to talk about, and 
declared that they knew of only one poem of his, that 
beginning with the words, *'My banks, they are fur- 
nished with bees. ' ' A very little later a contemporary 
gave an account of the result of this particular 
missionary enterprise to establish the superiority of 
Shelley to Byron. ' ' Sunderland, Milnes, and Hallam, ' ' 
wrote Blakesley to Trench, '^made an expedition to 
Oxford, and spoke there in favor of the former, 
thereby of course procuring to themselves the repu- 
tation of atheists. Howbeit they gained some converts 
and spread the knowledge of the poet, so that some 
illuminati of the sister university, who at first took 
him for Shenstone, and then for 'the man who drives 

I'Life, Letters, and Friendships,' Vol. II, p. 163. 



156 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the black ponies in Hyde Park, ' at last went away with 
the belief 'that he was a man whom Lord Byron 
patronized, and who was drowned a few years ago. ' ' '^ 
In his ' Eeminiscences, ' Sir Francis Hastings Doyle 
asserts that the statements made about this memo- 
rable debate by two of its participants — Lord Hough- 
ton and Cardinal Manning — are hazy and incorrect; 
but his own version differs from theirs only in unim- 
portant particulars. Doyle tells us that it was he 
himself, acting under Cambridge influences, who 
brought forward for discussion in the Oxford Union a 
motion that Shelley was a greater poet than Byron. 
It would, he said, have been a perfectly languid debate, 
as were all non-political ones, had it not been for the 
arrival of the Cambridge men. This was sufficient to 
fill the benches. Of these Cambridge men, Sunderland 
spoke first. He was followed by Hallam. They in turn 
were followed by Oldham of Oriel who proceeded vig- 
orously to pooh-pooh the pretensions of Shelley, of 
whom he knew absolutely nothing, till he chanced to 
catch sight of Milnes waiting to fall upon him. At once 
he lost heart and to the mingled amazement and amuse- 
ment of his hearers went over to the side he had begun 
by attacking. After the speech of Milnes a short silence 
followed. The truth is that the Oxford advocates of 
Byron were a good deal at a loss what to say: for in 
general they were not merely unacquainted with the 
poetry of Shelley, they were unaware of even the 
existence of the man himself. This explains the 
hesitation that prevailed. Finally Manning of Balliol, 

1 R. C. Trench 's * Letters and Memorials, ' Vol. I, p. 50. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 157 

the virtual leader of the Union, rose to reply to the 
arguments of the Cambridge men. According to Doyle 
the substance of his argument was essentially as 
follows : Byron was a great poet because he had been 
read by them all. Consequently he was known to them 
all. If Shelley had been a great poet, he would have 
been read by them all and necessarily would have been 
known to them all. As this was not the case, he was 
not a great poet. All the more it followed that he was 
not so great a poet as Byron. In this view, when it 
came to a vote, the Union concurred by a large 
majority.^ 

Doyle, though he does not mention it, was the one 
who opened the debate. He was followed by Sunder- 
land, the first of the Cambridge trio. Sunderland is 
the person referred to in Tennyson's sketch, entitled 
*A Character.' From that it may easily be gathered 
that he was far from being a favorite of the poet. He 
was further described by him as '*a very plausible, 
parliament-like, self-satisfied speaker at the Union 
Debating Society." Sunderland retorted in his turn. 
When told that he was the one meant in the poem just 
mentioned, he remarked, '^Oh, really, and which 
Tennyson did you say wrote it? The slovenly one?" 
The poet's opinion of the man was assuredly not 
shared by his fellow students. They looked up to him 
with admiration. To him they awarded the palm of 
oratory. The highest expectations were entertained 
of the brilliancy of his future. Whether their antici- 
pations would have been fulfilled, it is of course impos- 

1 F. M. Brookfield's 'Cambridge Apostles,' p. 130, 



158 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

sible to say; for shortly after graduation he was 
seized by a mysterious malady Imder which he lin- 
gered a physical and intellectual wreck until his death 
in 1867. He ended, it is said, in believing himself the 
Almighty — which, however, is not an altogether unex- 
ampled state of mind in men assumed to be perfectly 
sane. 

But there is no question as to the profound impres- 
sion wrought by Sunderland on this occasion upon his 
Oxford hearers, though his two comrades thought at 
the time that he was hardly up to his usual level. More 
than two years later Charles Wordsworth in a letter 
to his brother Christopher spoke of a great oration 
which Gladstone had delivered in a political debate 
which had taken place in the Oxford Union. It was, he 
wrote, "the most splendid speech, out and out, that 
was ever heard in our Society — not excepting Sunder- 
land's Shell eian harangue.'" That harangue, by the 
profound impression it made, evidently served as a 
standard to measure the efforts of others. The Oxford 
men were clearly at a disadvantage in this debate. In 
addition to knowing nothing about Shelley, the deco- 
rous and self -restrained men of the sister university 
were struck with astonishment and almost bewildered 
by the fervor and fire of the Cambridge speakers. 
They felt very much, according to their own descrip- 
tion, as the polished Romans of the later empire must 
have felt on coming into contact with the rude bar- 
barians of the North when they swept down upon them 

1 Letter of May 24, 1831, in Charles Wordsworth's 'Annals of my 
Early Life,' 1891, p. 86. 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 159 

from their wintry clime. * ' Both Monckton Milnes and 
Henry Hallam," wrote Cardinal Manning in Novem- 
ber, 1866, ''took us aback by the boldness and freedom 
of their manner. But I remember the effect of Sunder- 
land 's declamation and action to this day. It had never 
been seen or heard before among us ; we cowered like 
birds, and ran like sheep. "^ 

The different accounts of this debate are of interest, 
because, however much they vary in details, they all 
agree in their representations of the general ignorance 
that prevailed about Shelley and his poetry among the 
educated public at the beginning of the fourth decade 
of the nineteenth century. Outside of a limited circle 
he was little spoken of, and when spoken of, it was not 
unfrequently to his disadvantage. But during the 
period from 1830 to 1840 his reputation rose rapidly. 
His still unpublished writings were brought out either 
separately or in the shape of contributions to periodi- 
cals. Not merely the willingness but the anxiety of 
editors to secure them shows how rapidly the interest 
in the man and in his productions was rising. The 
references to him in the critical literature of this 
fourth decade not only increase in number but in the 
warmth of the testimony they pay to his genius. For 
the change in opinion that was going on, there was 
ample reason. The little that had been known of him 
previously, especially as reported by his enemies, was 
usually of an offensive nature. His course had seemed 
to outrage all the social traditions and moral beliefs 
of his native land. What information was now com- 

lE. S. Purcell's 'Life of Cardinal Manning,' 1896, Vol. I, p. 33. 



160 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ing to light redounded ordinarily to his credit. Much 
indeed of what he had done could not be palliated by 
sophistry or condoned by the circumstances by which 
he was surrounded. A feeling of this sort was almost 
universal. Even in the most favorable notices of his 
career or of his writings there was apt to be a regret- 
ful reference to the life he had lived, and the opinions 
he had entertained and promulgated. But there was 
also a disposition to forget and forgive his follies and 
his faults on the part of the sternest of his critics, as 
well as to pay due honor to his unquestionable genius. 
The general critical attitude of the fourth decade 
towards Shelley may be summed up in the admission 
that he was a fallen angel, to be sure; but that after 
all it is a good deal to be an angel, even if a fallen one ; 
and that for the sake of the noun the adjective could 
be endured. 

Yet in spite of the steadily increasing regard enter- 
tained for Shelley there is one bibliographical fact 
which shows unmistakably how little, comparatively 
speaking, was the hold which he had gained as yet over 
the general public of educated men. It was not till 
1839, fifteen years after his death, that an authorized 
edition of his works, purporting to be in any way 
complete, was brought out under the supervision of his 
widow. Even this was not really complete. In defer- 
ence to what was called morality, 'Queen Mab' was 
omitted from the first edition. It was not until indig- 
nant protest came from the admirers of the poet that 
it was added to the edition which speedily followed. 
Up to this time the public that wished to read Shelley 



REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 161 

had been obliged to content itself either with the 
original editions of his writings, even then none too 
easy to get, or with the imperfect and vilely printed 
collections which came out in two volumes from the 
booksellers. Doubtless had he lived, the general 
recognition of his genius would have come earlier mth 
the impression made upon the world of readers by 
the production of new works, or new editions of old 
works. But it was making rapid progress during this 
period of transition, and by the end of it he had taken 
a position from which he has never been displaced. 

To Keats this fortune came even later. During the 
fourth decade of the century his name is but little 
mentioned, either with praise or blame, in the critical 
literature of the period; and when it does occur, it 
is frequently, perhaps in most cases, spelled wrongly. 
Many of the few references to him could well have been 
spared; for they were too often expressions of con- 
tumely and contempt. Yet, after all, such outgivings 
are apt to be misleading and in this instance time has 
shown their utter delusiveness. The acknowledgment 
of his greatness would have come speedily had he sur- 
vived. Even at that early period more than one coun- 
terbalancing view came from high critical authority. 
There were those, then, who believed that if he lived 
he would be the head of the following generation of 
poets. ' ' Lamb places him next to Wordsworth, ' ' wrote 
Henry Crabb Robinson in December, 1820 — ''not 
meaning any comparison, for they are dissimilar." 
His early death delayed the general recognition of his 
genius until the fifth decade of the century; but the 



162 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

interest in him and his writings had been slowly 
gathering force and volume during the intervening 
years. When at last it burst forth into public mani- 
festation, it overbore at once all opposition. During 
the period of transition, however, it influenced com- 
paratively few ; but one of the few it influenced deeply ; 
and he was the man who was destined to be the domi- 
nant force in the literature of the Victorian period. 
Even in that early day, those who were the admirers 
of Keats recognized in Tennyson the one upon whom 
his mantle had fallen; but neither of the two then 
attracted the attention of any but the most limited 
number. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 

PERIOD 

Part Three 
Popular Authors of the Period 

The decade between 1830 and 1840 has been styled in 
the preceding sections the literary interregnum. The 
limits might perhaps be justifiably extended so as to 
include the years between the death of Byron in 1824 
and the publication of the Tennyson volumes of 1842. 
During this period poems were produced and published 
which stand now much higher in the public estimation 
than they did then. Their merit indeed was often little 
recognized at the time. Only one man is remembered 
by us at the present day who attained high reputation 
among those of his contemporaries whose opinion was 
worth considering. In the decade which witnessed the 
advent of Tennyson and Browning, the single new 
poetic reputation, accepted by critical contemporaries, 
which still survives, was achieved by a writer even 
then unknown save to a comparatively limited number 
of readers and never in fact widely known since. Still 
though his superiority was acknowledged at the time 
by but a small circle, it was a circle that carried with 



164 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

it the most authoritative estimate of contemporary 
opinion. During the period under discussion, his 
poetry was generally rated as far superior to that of 
his two countrymen, whom we look upon as the great 
representative authors of the Victorian era; and this 
continued to be the case to some extent to a much later 
date. 

This man was Henry Taylor, who in 1869 was made 
Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and 
St. George. For a good share of his life he was nomi- 
nally a clerk in the colonial office, but really one of the 
rulers of the colonies. From his boyhood he had been 
addicted to literature. Born in the last year of the 
eighteenth century, he had published in 1827 a play 
entitled * Isaac Comnenus. ' It fell dead from the press. 
A criticism of it by Southey in ' The Quarterly Review' 
for October, 1828, failed to revive it in spite of its very 
favorable character. Its ill fortune did not discourage 
the author who professed himself to be naturally of an 
unhopeful state of mind; but it prevented his feeling 
any desire to hurry into print a second time. In fact, 
several years elapsed before he was ready to try again 
his fortune with the public. Southey had suggested to 
him as the subject of a drama the story of the Flemish 
leader, Philip Van Artevelde. The idea pleased him. 
In 1828 he began work upon the poem so far as the 
pressure of official duties would give him leisure. 
When finished, the difficulty was to find a publisher. 
Murray, who had brought out 'Isaac Comnenus,' had 
a lively recollection of the failure of that drama, and 
was not disposed to repeat the experiment. Moxon, 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 165 

to whom he was referred, was likewise not enthusiastic. 
Still, as the author was willing to bear the expense of 
publication, he was willing to take the work upon those 
terms. 

Taylor and his friends belonged to the Wordsworth- 
ian school, the first article in whose creed was that a 
work of genius could not be popular until the proper 
taste had been created to appreciate it. This would be 
a comfortable doctrine to believe in case of failure, 
were there not so many thousands of authors, good 
and bad, and generally bad, with whom one has to 
share its consolations. Taylor fancied that his work 
was at issue with the taste of the public and therefore 
necessarily superior to it. Consequently it could not 
hope to achieve pecuniary success or to bring him 
speedy reputation. Nevertheless he made the venture. 
Accordingly a limited edition in two volumes of five 
hundred copies of the drama of ' Philip Van Artevelde ' 
came out early in June, 1834. 

The publication had been kept back in order to have 
the work make its appearance at the same time with 
the laudatory notice in the 'Quarterly,' written by 
Lockhart ; for that review practised as one of its first 
virtues that its contributors should be aided. There 
were also several other articles in praise of it imme- 
diately after its appearance, written by personal 
friends for the leading critical weeklies. How far its 
favorable reception was due to these notices it is hard 
to tell; yet there seems little reason to doubt that 
without them, the merit of the drama would have 
secured its speedy recognition. At all events, the work 



166 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was a success, at least what the author deemed success. 
The general tone of approval was such as no other 
poetical work received from the principal leading lit- 
erary periodicals during the period from 1830 to 1850. 
Taylor as a Wordsworthian ought to have been pro- 
foundly grieved by his good fortune; but such is the 
perversity of human nature, he was sincerely delighted. 
His duty was to believe that he had shown himself a 
middling poet by having at once pleased the public. 
On the contrary he evinced a most reprehensible pref- 
erence for present fame to any arrears of renown in 
reversion. Greville, his intimate friend, tells us in his 
diary that the author with the vivacity of a sanguine 
disposition and a confidence in the sterling merits of 
the poem, believed that edition would follow edition 
like wave upon wave.^ Taylor himself mentions with 
pride in his autobiography that the first edition was 
almost immediately sold, and a new one had to be put 
in press without delay. 

One may get a somewhat false idea of the success 
of the work from this account. The first edition con- 
sisted, as has been said, of but five hundred copies; 
and whatever was the number of the second, it sup- 
plied for some time all the demand that existed. The 
work continued to have a steady and respectable sale 
but not a great one. In 1835 Moxon informed Brown- 
ing that 'Artevelde' had not paid expenses by thirty- 
odd pounds. This refers to the first edition which, 
though it was all sold, Greville reports as giving a 

1 C. C. F. Greville 's ' Journal of the Eeigns of George IV and William 
IV,' under date of July 24, 1834. 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 167 

balance against Taylor of thirty-seven pounds when 
his account with the publisher was made up. One 
comes in time to have an immense respect for the 
system of bookkeeping prevailing in the trade, so gen- 
erally successful is it in bringing the author into debt. 
Taylor could therefore content himself after all with 
the fact that, however well spoken of by the critics, 
his work had met with no great sale among the herd; 
and this was a state of things which continued to be 
true during the more than half -century of life that 
followed. Still, in spite of its comparatively limited 
circulation, ' Philip Van Artevelde ' was a very genuine 
success. For several years following its publication 
the estimation in which it was held was sufficient to 
make Taylor not only a poet of distinction in the eyes 
of the cultivated, but the poet of distinction of the 
younger men then coming forward. His future was 
regarded as assured. His society was courted. The 
doors of Lansdowne House and of Holland House — 
then the two great literary salons — were, he tells us 
himself, thrown open. During the rest of the fourth 
decade and even later, he was a far more prominent 
figure in literature than any of the great younger 
writers who were just then setting out on their career 
of fame. He admits that this period of sudden celeb- 
rity was overclouded or rather outshone in the course 
of time ; but he assures us that it was very agreeable 
while it lasted. The year 1842 that saw the rise of 
Tennyson marked the beginning of the subsidence of 
Henry Taylor. Yet many kept up their faith in him 
as the leading poet of the younger generation for a 



168 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

much longer period. Evidence of this feeling can be 
found plentifully not merely in the critical literature 
of the day, but in the correspondence of eminent men. 

This contemporary estimate, coming from the per- 
sons it did, very likely affected Taylor's attitude 
towards his brother poets. There is found in his auto- 
biography a curious passage in a letter to him of about 
1860 from Tennyson's neighbor, Mrs. Cameron. The 
object of Mrs. Cameron's hero-worship was her corre- 
spondent. She annoyed some people but amused a far 
larger number by rating Tennyson inferior to Taylor 
as a poet. ** Alfred," she writes, **has grown, he says, 
much fonder of you since your two last visits here. 
He says he feels now he is beginning to know you and 
not to feel afraid of you, and that he is beginning to get 
over your extreme insolence to him when he was young 
and you were in your meridian splendor of glory. So 
one reads your simplicity."^ It may be that it did 
indicate a misunderstanding on Tennyson's part of 
Taylor's simplicity — or again it may not. But it cer- 
tainly makes manifest the position held by the two 
poets in the general estimation of the time. Whatever 
may have been the private opinion of their compara- 
tive merits entertained by the greater author, it is 
clear that he then recognized plainly that in the eyes 
of the public his station was much lower. 

Taylor never repeated this early success. From 
time to time he put forth new dramatic pieces of much 
more than average merit ; but none of them attained to 
the popularity of this, his second venture. It is curious 

1 ' Autobiography of Henry Taylor, ' Vol. II, p. 193. 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 169 

to note that the result was foreseen by some of the men 
who noticed this work; and as literary history is full 
of illustrations of critical obtuseness, it is just that 
examples of critical insight should occasionally be 
given. The reviewer in ' The Literary Gazette, ' clearly 
ignorant of the personality of the author, and indeed 
fancying him a man of advanced age, praised the work 
highly under that impression. He declared that it was 
the fruit of a life. ''As it has no precursor," he wrote, 
' ' we doubt its having a successor. ' ' So far as the pub- 
lic was concerned, it never had a successor. Taylor's 
later productions were received with that calm and 
languid approval which is more disheartening to an 
author who has once met with favor, than the most 
ferocious criticism. In 1842 he brought out an his- 
torical drama entitled 'Edwin, the Fair,' and in 1850 
still another drama originally entitled 'The Virgin 
Widow,' and subsequently 'A Sicilian Summer.' This 
was an effort on his part to revive the Elizabethan 
comedy of romance. Indeed, all his pieces are imita- 
tive of the language of the playwrights of that period. 
It met with no particular success, though he himself 
preferred it, at least in many ways, to his other pro- 
ductions. ' ' The World, ' ' he said in 1858, ' ' cared noth- 
ing about 'The Virgin Widow,' and would not read it, 
though it had always seemed to me the pleasantest 
play I had written, and I never could tell why people 
would not be pleased with it. ' '^ His last production — 
and with it his poetical career terminated — was en- 
titled 'St. Clement's Eve.' It came out in June, 1862, 

1 ' Autobiography, ' Vol. II, p. 41. 



170 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

and according to his own account had a better recep- 
tion than the previous comedy. Of an edition of fif- 
teen hundred copies, nine hundred had been sold in 
six months. But none of these plays attained either to 
the sale or the reputation of the work which had 
brought him his first fame. To the day of his death — 
Taylor lived until 1886 — he was known and spoken of 
as the author of 'Philip Van Artevelde.' 

There may be many now who will be disposed to 
smile at the extravagant language which was used by 
the critics of the thirties and later in praise of this 
production. Yet there was a good deal to justify the 
enthusiasm which they expressed. There was much in 
the work which bore out fully the eulogies which were 
heaped upon it. The choice of the subject was a par- 
ticularly happy one, and there was a philosophic tone 
about the whole production which lifted it into a much 
higher atmosphere than that of the popular poetry of 
the day. Though a drama, it was not intended for 
stage representation. The opening sentence of the 
preface seems to indicate that its length was the main 
objection in the author's eyes. He there says that the 
two parts and the interlude, of which the entire work 
consists, are equal in length to about six such plays as 
are adapted to representation. Still in spite of this 
disclaimer the experiment was tried. Macready, who 
ought to have been a first-class judge, was profoundly 
impressed by the drama upon its appearance. His 
diary contains a number of references to it. He cen- 
sured what he considered the affectation seen in the 
coining of unrequired words and the occasional obscur- 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 171 

ity; but withal, he said, ''there is so much truth, phi- 
losophy, poetry, and beauty, combined with passion 
and descriptive power of no ordinary character, that I 
was obliged to force myself to lay the book down." 
It continued a favorite work with him, and when a 
dozen years later, he met the author personally, the 
idea of bringing out the piece on the stage seemed to 
have occurred to him. The project was carried into 
effect. On November 22, 1847, it was produced at the 
Princess's Theater where Macready was then acting. 
It could not be called successful. It was acted but five 
times. It may be added that the author tells us in his 
autobiography that he did not see it until the sixth rep- 
resentation — a representation at which it never ar- 
rived. Macready gives an exaggerated account of its 
failure in a passage in his diary in which occurs from 
his own point of view a brief comment on the result 
of the first night's performance. ''Failed. I cannot 
think it my fault, ' ' he wrote. He was a good deal dis- 
appointed. "I certainly laboured," he added, "more 
than my due in regard to the whole play, and much of 
my own part of Van Artevelde I acted well; but the 
play was so under-acted by the people engaged in it, 
that it broke down under their weight." 

In spite of the excellence of its poetry, 'Philip Van 
Artevelde' had little chance of success as an acting 
play. This was apparent to the author at the outset; 
at least he had so expressed himself in the preface to 
the original work. After it had been produced, he 
changed his mind, though he conceded that his judg- 
ment was not worth much. "My opinion," he wrote. 



172 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

* * . . . was that the play was by no means ill-suited to 
the stage, though I should not have hazarded such an 
opinion had I not seen it there." Looked at from the 
purely literary point of view, it undoubtedly was then 
and is now much better suited to the stage than the 
immense majority of the pieces brought out ; but when 
it is contrasted with any great work of its class, its 
inferiority in this particular is at once recognized. 
The undramatic character of 'Philip Van Artevelde' 
is shown in almost every scene. It is really a novel in 
blank verse, or as the author himself called it, an His- 
torical Romance cast in dramatic form. The charac- 
ters are revealed to us ; they do not reveal themselves. 
Long before they appear, at least before they become 
prominent, they are carefully described. So far from 
experiencing any surprise at anything they do, we are 
prepared for it, we anticipate it. There is in conse- 
quence a lack of exciting situations; nothing of the 
startling effect of the unexpected, in which the drama 
delights. This laborious preparation of the mind for 
what is coming is conspicuous in the way the chief 
character is heralded. Philip Van Artevelde is to be 
the great leader of Ghent against the Earl of Flanders. 
It takes the whole of the first act to get him into his 
situation, and by the time he has got there, we know 
him so well that we feel confident just how he must 
conduct himself. 

Such a method of depicting characters is legitimate 
in the novel, but it does not do for the stage. As a 
drama pure and simple the work fails therefore in 
dramatic art. Furthermore, while showing throughout 



POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 173 

poetic ability of a high order, it does not reach the 
heights occupied by poetic genius. This is the impres- 
sion which, it seems, the dispassionate reading of the 
work ordinarily makes upon the large majority of 
cultivated men. We respect it, we admire it; but we 
are not inspired by it. It interests, but it does not stir 
us profoundly. This is, in fact, the prevailing charac- 
teristic of all of Taylor's dramas. We see the same 
condition of things in the play of ' The Virgin Widow, ' 
the little success of which Taylor professed himself 
unable to understand. Like * Philip Van Artevelde, ' it 
is an artificial creation, it is not an organic growth. 
Both are well-constructed pieces of mechanism, the 
work of an artist so painstaking and clever, that there 
is scarcely a place where one can lay a finger on a flaw. 
But throughout each, life and passion are lacking. 
Both are anatomical studies, interesting for the skill 
with which they have been put together, attractive 
often for the philosophical and poetical garb with 
which the skeletons are clothed; but they are not 
living, breathing forces. 

Yet Taylor is and will always remain an interesting 
poet, attractive to the few if never widely read by the 
many. Furthermore, he must have been a man of very 
pronounced personality. The deference paid to him 
by the ablest of his contemporaries, the respect enter- 
tained for his opinions and his achievements, show 
that he must have been possessed of qualities entirely 
out of the common. To mention two of his most inti- 
mate associates out of a very large number, he was a 
favored friend of both Southey and Wordsworth. John 



174 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Sterling, who knew him well, wrote to Trench not long 
after the publication of 'Philip Van Artevelde' that 
Taylor had * ' the best balanced mind — is, on the whole, 
nearest the perfect man of the ancients — of all I have 
ever known. His poem seems to me splendid."^ 
Towards the close of his life Swinburne, while con- 
troverting Taylor's views about Shelley, paid him a 
tribute of extreme deference, and expressed the highest 
admiration of his jjowers — though it must be confessed 
that Swinburne as a critic has always been subject to 
attacks of extravagant and irresponsible enthusiasm, 
in which praise is ladled out with a dreadful profusion 
of adjectives and a plentiful lack of discrimination. 

Still, there is no question as to the high estimation in 
which Taylor was held during his whole life by men 
whose good opinion was worth having. Yet with so 
much to be justly admired, there seems to have been 
something essentially prosaic in his nature. This may 
explain in part why with his manifest poetical sensi- 
bility he never attained the highest grade as a poet. 
His failure there is most conspicuous in his lyric 
pieces. The facility with which blank verse lends itself 
to expression induces many men to think that they are 
writing poetry, and their readers to believe that they 
are reading poetry, when they are only writing and 
reading a measured sort of prose. But in the instance 
of the lyric neither writer nor reader can become the 
victim of any such delusion. We have plenty of proof 
of this fact in the poem which is inserted as an inter- 
lude between the two parts of 'Philip Van Artevelde,' 

iR. C. Trench's 'Letters,' Vol. I, p. 159. 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 175 

and in the songs which are scattered through that and 
others of his dramas. In a certain way some of the 
latter are quite perfect. They are finished in more 
senses than one. They are frequently close imitations 
of the songs found in the plays of the Elizabethan 
dramatists. But they are palpable imitations. The 
element of spontaneity is entirely lacking. The best 
of them are poems of a very high order of mediocrity — 
so high indeed that some of them have at times imposed 
upon the trained judgment — but out of the region of 
high mediocrity they never ascend. 

The most striking evidence of the essentially prosaic 
quality of Taylor's mind is seen in his autobiography. 
This is a very remarkable work both for what it says 
and for what it fails to say. There are in it the most 
astounding revelations in regard to matters which 
most men are solicitous to keep to themselves. Taylor 
tells us of his rejection by one woman to whom he 
made a proposal of marriage. He lets us know fur- 
ther of the difficulty he experienced, both from her- 
self and her family, in securing the woman whom he 
eventually married. There are revelations of feelings 
about himself and his writings which are remarkable 
for nothing so much as for the display they make of 
the most egregious and unblushing vanity. Such feel- 
ings are not peculiar. Nor are they reprehensible, so 
long as they are kept to one's self; but in the vast 
majority of cases the man seeks in time to hide them 
even from his own consciousness, if in truth they have 
not been beaten out of him by the friction and conflicts 
which he comes to have with his fellow men. 



176 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

But even more striking in this autobiography is what 
Taylor did not put in. During the course of his life 
he was brought into contact with some of the most 
eminent men of his time. Several of them he knew 
intimately. He must have come to be acquainted with 
much that the world would have been glad to hear and 
remember. But though their names flit across his 
pages, they do not enliven them. We are told in sev- 
eral instances of the wise sayings they uttered; but 
none of these wise sayings are preserved. Something 
might be said in defence of this course, if it had been 
due to a determination to respect the sanctity of pri- 
vate conversation. But no such feeling existed on his 
part. Many of his pages are filled with records and 
remarks of men of inferior interest — not in all cases 
because they were inferior men, but because for some 
reason they have failed to impress themselves upon 
their time and their countrymen. Furthermore, he 
gave up much space to family letters, to little events 
in his own career, to reflections upon his own thoughts 
and feelings — all of which, though undoubtedly of 
much interest to himself, are usually of the least con- 
ceivable interest to any other human being. The truth 
is that no one with such opportunities to make ah 
autobiography entertaining could have struggled with 
much more success to make it dull. 

During the period of transition, Taylor was in the 
eyes of the highly cultivated easily the most command- 
ing figure in English poetry among the younger writ- 
ers. But as regards popular appreciation he was 
immeasurably inferior to two authors who began their 



POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 177 

literary career at about the same time as he. One of 
them was a Scotch clergyman named Robert Pollok. 
He died in 1827 at the age of twenty-nine. This event 
took place a few months after the poem was published 
which was to achieve a success the greatest author of 
any age might have envied. It was entitled 'The 
Course of Time. ' Its sale was extraordinary. In spite 
of frequent assertions to the contrary, the great work 
of Milton during the remaining years of the century 
which followed its publication met with distinct favor. 
But whatever success it gained pales, as regards gen- 
eral acceptance, with the popularity which waited on 
the diffuse, and, as a whole, the feeble poem of Pollok. 
First published in the middle of April, 1827, its second 
edition did not make its appearance till January of the 
following year. This consisted of fifteen hundred 
copies which were disposed of in a fortnight. By June, 
the fourth edition had been sold out. In a little more 
than six months, six thousand copies had found buyers. 
By the close of 1828, twelve thousand copies had been 
put on the market. This was the beginning of the 
triumphant career it was to run. Before the third of 
a century had gone by, eighty thousand copies had been 
disposed of in Great Britain. The work was received 
with equal favor in this country. Something of its 
continued sale here was due to its being frequently 
used in certain schools as a text-book for parsing — a 
process which after a fashion kept alive the poem, 
while necessarily destroying the vitality of what little 
poetry it actually contained. 

But great as was the impression made by Pollok 's 



178 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

work, so far as the public was concerned, it was not in 
any measure comparable to that produced by the 
poetry of Robert Montgomery. The difference of con- 
ditions under which their respective writings came out, 
redounded also to the credit of the latter author. 
Pollok's great success was limited to a single one of 
his productions. But Montgomery wrote no small 
number of poems, not one of which — certainly not one 
of the important pieces — failed to pass through edition 
after edition. As long as his life lasted, his writings 
showed no signs of waning popularity. Furthermore, 
he had not in his favor, as did Pollok, an influential 
critic like Christopher North, who was indeed so much 
of a partisan as to find fault more than once with 
Jeffrey for not sharing in his own enthusiasm about 
that author. Nor had he behind him the support of a 
great publishing house like that of * Blackwood.' Still 
further, he encountered, what Pollok did not, a con- 
stant storm of depreciation and contemptuous personal 
abuse at a comparatively early period in his career. 
This came, too, from critical organs, then wielding 
wide influence. "With few exceptions, these heaped 
upon Montgomery the grossest contumely. The prac- 
tice began with some of the weeklies and was followed 
at once by certain monthlies. The three great and 
presumably all-powerful quarterlies joined later in the 
attack. His only effective defender in the press was 
' The Literary Gazette, ' whose editor indeed was about 
as great as a critic as he himself was great as a poet. 
Yet all these violent assaults directed against him 
availed not a particle in retarding his triumphant 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 179 

progress, so far as that is determined by the wide cir- 
culation of his writings. In the hostility he encoun- 
tered and in its absolute ineffectiveness there is noth- 
ing like his experience recorded in the history of Eng- 
lish verse. Hostile criticism has occasionally been suc- 
cessful for a time in delaying the reception of really 
great work. It was absolutely powerless in the case of 
this writer of inferior work. The story of his life, 
personal as well as literary, demands in consequence a 
certain degree of attention, not due at all to the impor- 
tance of the man or to the value of his productions. 
But it is an instructive chapter in the history of Eng- 
lish literature ; for nowhere can be found a more signal 
example of the futility of criticism to affect the for- 
tunes of a popular favorite. 

Robert Montgomery was born at Bath in 1807. He 
is reported to have been the natural son of one Gomery 
who acted the part of clown at the theater in that city. 
He made up to some extent for the lack of legitimacy 
by prefixing 'Mont' to his father's name, thereby 
giving himself the more aristocratic appellation of 
Montgomery. These at least were the statements con- 
stantly made by hostile critics. The boy acquired in 
his school days a reputation for ability. By the time 
he was twenty years old, he had written and published 
a satire entitled 'The Age Reviewed.' It came out in 
1827, and passed into a second edition, revised and 
enlarged, in March, 1828. This last year saw also the 
production of a similar work entitled 'The Puffiad.'^ 

1 This work is ordinarily put down as having been published in 1830, 
It came out at the time here stated. It was reviewed in 'The Literary 
Gazette' for May 31, 1828. 



180 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

The satire is remarkable for its denunciation of the 
process by which according to his enemies he himself 
was later to gain his own reputation. But this work 
which appeared in May had been preceded by another 
of an entirely different character through which he 
sprang at once into reputation and popularity. This 
was a poem entitled ' The Omnipresence of the Deity. ' 
It came out at the very end of January, 1828, when its 
author was only twenty-one years old. Far different 
was its reception by the critics from that which had 
waited upon his satires. 'The Literary Gazette' which 
had denounced 'The Age Reviewed' as ''unmitigated 
balderdash" executed at once a change of front. It 
greeted the work with enthusiasm. In so doing, it 
reflected a general popular sentiment. It admitted 
that there were defects in the poem, a feature incident 
to the early years of the author. But these, it said, 
were more than atoned for by the beauty and genius 
displayed in it as a whole. These characteristics 
placed it in the very highest class of English sacred 
poetry. This was, in fact, the view generally expressed 
by the received organs of public opinion which noticed 
the work at all. 'The Gentleman's Magazine' des- 
canted especially upon the author's loftiness of style. 
"His language," it said, "rises into a sublimity par- 
taking of inspiration. ' ' It had no hesitation in assert- 
ing that by the strength of its own great merit the 
work had "ranked itself among the permanent litera- 
ture of the nation, in whose language it will be immor- 
tal." So general was this chorus of laudation, so 
steadily did it continue, that Christopher North, the 



POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 181 

reigning critic of * Blackwood's Magazine,' felt called 
upon to consider the pretensions of this new claimant 
for the highest of poetical honors. In the number for 
May, 1828, he devoted more than twenty pages to a 
review of the poem which, while not enthusiastic, was 
not condemnatory. 

Many works have met with this chorus of eulogy 
which never appealed to a wide public in the matter of 
circulation. 'Philip Van Artevelde' is a case in point. 
It was hailed with perhaps even louder acclaim than 
this poem of Montgomery's; but far different was the 
sale of the latter. Published late in January, 1828, a 
second edition followed in March, a third in April, a 
fourth in May, a fifth in July, a sixth in August, and a 
seventh in October. It might be supposed that a sale 
so enormous would satisfy all possible demands, espe- 
cially as in October of this same year another volume 
of religious poems in blank verse made its appearance 
from the same prolific pen. This one, whose first piece 
was entitled 'The Universal Prayer,' was expensively 
printed in quarto with a portrait of the poet to meet 
the demand of his admirers. In a few weeks a cheaper 
edition in octavo followed in order to satisfy the crav- 
ings of the general public for the intellectual and spir- 
itual nutriment it contained. But the rivalry of the 
later work did not interfere with the success of the 
earlier. In January, 1829, 'The Omnipresence of the 
Deity' had passed into an eighth edition, and in August 
of that same year into a ninth. The second poem, too, 
held its own with the first and had almost as wide a 
sale. It was a source of peculiar gratification to cer- 



182 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tain literary critics, in felicitating themselves upon the 
fact that they had been the first to welcome the dawn- 
ing of genius, to note that the public taste had now 
ratified their own. Only a little later they were enabled 
to announce that Mr. Robert Montgomery, who at so 
early an age had made so powerful an impression in 
the highest range of sacred poetry, had in the press a 
new work. At the very end of the year it was pub- 
lished. It was a poem in blank verse, and entitled 
'Satan, or Intellect without God.' In this work, the 
archenemy of mankind was represented as taking his 
seat on the top of a high mountain. From that point 
of vantage he contemplated the universe and gave 
expression to a series of reflections inspired by what 
he saw and what he felt. But there was nothing 
Satanic about this Satan. His utterances were in gen- 
eral unobjectionable, if indeed, they might not be called 
praiseworthy. A public which, a few years before, 
had been shocked beyond expression by Byron, who in 
his 'Cain' had made the devil talk like the devil, was 
delighted beyond measure in having him discourse 
very much after the manner of the superintendent of 
a Sunday school. 

Up to this time, Montgomery had had everything his 
own way. His two volumes of religious poetry had 
met with a sale which might be justly called phenome- 
nal. Furthermore, so far as the leading critical peri- 
odicals of all sorts were concerned, they had either 
spoken warmly in his favor or had said nothing in his 
dispraise. His third religious work had been received 
by his admirers with even greater enthusiasm than 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 183 

that which had marked the reception of the two pre- 
vious volumes. The staid and serious 'Gentleman's 
Magazine,' for instance, declared that the new poem 
abounded in passages of beauty and sublimity which 
had few parallels in modern times. The reviewer, in 
truth, was left in a state of stupefaction by the con- 
templation of the greatness of the author. ''When we 
think of the youth of Mr. Montgomery, ' ' he wrote, ' ' we 
stand amazed at the height to which his genius and 
talents have raised him. There is a vigour of mind 
and a maturity of thought and intellect, — a moral 
daring united to the finest perception of all that is 
refined and delicate in taste, exciting at once our sur- 
prise and admiration. ' '^ 

But the critical knives that had been sharpening for 
this favorite of the public now proceeded to get in their 
work. Success so pronounced would have been cer- 
tain to provoke envy and jealousy, even had it been 
fully merited. The reaction against the ridiculous 
laudation of which Montgomery had been the recipient, 
speedily showed itself in the corresponding form of 
excessive vituperation. Some time before, there had 
indeed been ominous indications of the coming change 
of attitude. But it was not till the publication of 
' Satan ' that the long-gathering storm burst in its fury. 
The onslaught upon the poet was made from every 
conceivable quarter. Critical missiles were directed 
against him in periodical after periodical, from the 
light-armed weeklies to the heavy-armed quarterlies. 
The attack was begun by 'The Athenaeum' which had 

1 'Gentleman's Magazine,' January, 1830, Vol. C, p. 45. 



184 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

previously been warm in his praise. It had now under- 
gone a change of ownership and with it a change of 
view. After speaking of the two previous religious 
poems as harmless trash, it described the new volume 
as a wretched production, full of unknown and unne- 
cessary words, bad grammar, unmeaning nonsense and 
rigmarole, and summarily characterized its author as 
'^unpoetical, unlearned, unreasonable, and ungram- 
matical, with nothing positive about him but his arro- 
gance and self-conceit."^ This appeared near the 
middle of January. Towards the end of the same 
month, it was followed by a similar review in 'The 
Atlas.' This weekly described Montgomery's 'Satan' 
as a good-natured, long-winded, and highly fanciful 
person who selects for the sake of contrast one of the 
coldest seats in the universe and delivers a long speech 
in which he discusses in maudlin English all the known 
and unknown conditions of our nature. He is repre- 
sented as being altogether above the restraints of 
grammar, and as having an unmeasured contempt for 
the received meanings of words ; as a sort of amende 
honorable for the treatment of those now in existence 
he coins a number of new ones that never had any 
currency outside of his own special dominions. A 
little later a northern periodical charged him with 
vagueness and bombast, musty morality, and trite 
sublimity.^ 

Two monthlies followed in even a more violent strain 
of disparagement. One was the old * Monthly Review, " 

1 January 24, 1830. 

2 ' Edinburgh Literary Journal, ' February 13, 1830. 

3 February, 1830, 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 185 

which was now approaching the end of the century of 
its existence. The article appearing in it was devoted 
to two favorites of the public, Letitia Landon and 
Robert Montgomery. That part of it directed against 
the latter attacked particularly the system of puffing 
him and his soaring Miltonic genius which it declared 
had been resorted to in order to bolster up his repu- 
tation and to increase the circulation of his works. 
In this matter it anticipated what Macaulay was to 
say somewhat later, and said it much more effectively. 
But 'The Monthly Review' was no longer what it was 
in the eighteenth century, a power in the land. A far 
more persistent and thoroughly abusive assailant was 
'Eraser's Magazine' which had just been set on foot, 
and surpassed even 'Blackwood's' in the abounding 
vigor of its blackguardism. In its very first number, 
it fell foul of the poem of 'Satan,' "We have been 
bothered and stunned," it began, "with the brawling 
and braying of Arcadian nightingales in praise of the 
sacred poetry of young Montgomery. ' ' It was in this 
urbane way that the review opened and the remainder 
of the article was in accord with its beginning. From 
that time on for a series of years, few are the numbers 
of this liveliest and roughest of periodicals in which 
there was not some sneering reference to the work of 
Montgomery as a poet or to vituperation of him as a 
man. In one of them he was included with Bulwer 
and Alaric Watts — two favorite objects of aversion to 
the then conductors of the periodical — among ' ' snakes, 
rats, and other vermin. ' ' On another occasion he was 
termed "Holy Bob," and in still another "a rhyming 



186 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

monkey." To distinguish him from his veteran con- 
temporary James Montgomery, he was christened 
'Satan Montgomery' — and the name clung to him for 
a long series of years. 

It was now the turn of the quarterlies. Of these the 
* Westminster' first discussed the pretensions of the 
poet. Its review — which appeared in the number for 
April, 1830 — remains the most entertaining of any 
produced, partly because it was the politest. It was 
the fashion of the day, it asserted, to make biography 
the work of friendship. Campbell writes the life of 
the painter Lawrence, Moore that of Lord Byron. 
Robert Montgomery, in accordance with this practice, 
naturally takes as his subject Satan. The orthodoxy 
of the 'Westminster' did not stand high, and there was 
in this criticism apparently something of that pitying 
feeling towards the arch-fiend which led the Christian 
father Origen to hope that the devil himself might at 
last be saved. "As Milton," it continued, ''may be 
read in Heaven so this is precisely the book fit for 
Hades, and though we trust we hate the Enemy as 
vehemently as all good Christians ought to hate him, 
yet we own we wish him no worse than a patient peru- 
sal of this work to his honor. He will here bathe in a 
stream of molten lead." The criticism in the 'Quar- 
terly' was delayed for some years. Even then it did 
not take the shape of a formal review but character- 
istically went out of its way to make a malignant per- 
sonal attack upon Montgomery in a footnote which was 
fairly dragged into a notice of a fashionable novel.^ 

1' Quarterly Eeview,' Vol, LII, p. 491, November, 1834. 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 187 

The now far more noted article by Macaulay in the 
'Edinburgh' needs the fuller consideration which is 
to be given later; for about it and the influence it 
exerted at the time of its appearance the most erro- 
neous assertions still continue to be made. 

But the enemies of Montgomery did not by any 
means have things all their own way. If he had his 
detractors, he had also his defenders and admirers. 
There were many of these, and several of the many 
were influential. This was true of both individuals and 
of the periodical press. Pamphlets were written in 
his favor attacking his critics and asserting in fullest 
sincerity that the author of * Satan' was the coming 
man destined to occupy the throne of letters. These 
partisans of the past inveighed earnestly against the 
notoriously jealous criticism which, they declared, had 
sought to rob him of his reputation and the individual 
scurrility to which he had been subjected. There was 
ground, too, for their thinking lightly of the critical 
judgment of those who were foremost in decrying their 
idol. Rarely was the poetical taste of his depredators 
so flawless that it behooved the reader to pay heed 
to the dicta they promulgated. They at times went 
into raptures over productions as marvellous and 
indisputable works of genius of which nobody knows 
now even the names. Criticism that could deal in 
vagaries of this sort was not likely to shake the con- 
fidence of even the uncritical admirers of Mont- 
gomery. Their belief, too, in his greatness was sup- 
ported by the public of readers, or what for him was 
better, the public of purchasers. All the censure of 



188 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the poetry, all the vituperation of the man had not the 
slightest effect in retarding the sale of his work. One 
indeed gets the impression that they increased it. No 
writer of verse during the period of transition, and we 
might add during the whole period Montgomery lived, 
remotely rivalled him in popularity, so far as that is 
determined by the number of volumes sold. His works 
were brought out in collected editions. Selections 
from his poetry were made for the use of schools. 
Never has the powerlessness of critical attack been 
manifested more conspicuously. ''Who doffed the 
lion's hide," asked loftily 'Fraser's Magazine' in 
1831, ''from Mountebank Montgomery and hung a 
calf-skin on his recreant limbs which he must wear 
forever?" But the very next year it was forced to 
confess the futility of its efforts. "Robert Mont- 
gomery's Omnipresence of the Deity/' it said in De- 
cember, 1832, "has supplanted Paradise Lost in vari- 
ous academies in England. So much for the march of 
intellect. ' ' 

Nor was Montgomery's literary activity checked in 
the slightest by the hostile criticism he received. For 
the years immediately following what might almost be 
called an organized assault on the part of the greater 
portion of the periodical press he continued to produce 
a number of poems, all of which were uniformly suc- 
cessful as regards their reception by the public. One 
of them entitled 'The Messiah' came out in May, 1832, 
"dedicated by permission to her Majesty the Queen." 
It was received with enthusiasm by his devotees. So 
rapid was the sale and so great was the demand that 



POPULAR AUTHOES OF THE PERIOD 189 

the publishers were obliged to announce in the follow- 
ing month that a new edition would be brought out as 
soon as possible. Early in July they gave notice that 
it would be ready at a fixed date, and to obviate dis- 
appointment intending purchasers were requested to 
make immediate application for the work to their 
respective booksellers. In October followed the third 
edition, in August of the following year a fourth, and 
a little later a separate edition was advertised to be 
issued under the title of * The Sacred Annual. ' It was 
illustrated by colored and highly finished facsimiles of 
original pictures of the first excellence painted ex- 
pressly for the purpose by the most distinguished 
living artists such as Etty, Martin, Haydon, Von Hoist, 
and Maclise. This work, gorgeously bound and sold at 
a high price, led to a bestowal upon the poet of a medal 
by the Queen with her picture upon one side and that 
of the King upon the other. This was not the only 
instance of royal recognition which Montgomery re- 
ceived during his career. As late as 1849 another work 
of his, entitled 'The Christian Life, a Manual of 
Sacred Verse,' was published. It was 'inscribed by 
express permission to her most gracious Majesty." 
This work, like ' The Messiah, ' passed rapidly through 
several editions. 

As might perhaps be expected, the attacks directed 
against Montgomery made as little impression upon 
him personally as they did upon the public. Had he 
weakly yielded to the hostile criticism he evoked, and 
had he been led to remain silent as subsequently was 
Tennyson, his repute as a writer of verse would have 



190 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

speedily come to an ignominious close; for there was 
nothing in what he produced to impart to it vitality, 
outside of the immediate favor of the public. But he 
was not in the slightest degree affected by the critical 
storm which had burst upon his head. He was and 
continued to be serenely confident in his own greatness 
and had nothing but compassion or contempt for his 
detractors. As all the hostile criticism lavished upon 
his writings had not the slightest influence in lessening 
his popularity with the public, he felt justified in 
assuming an exultant and even a patronizing tone in 
dealing with his assailants. In the text of his poem of 
'Oxford,' but more particularly in the notes, he com- 
mented on Macaulay in a way the latter apparently 
never forgave. He spoke of him as ''the hired assas- 
sin of a bigoted review. ' ' A remark which strikes us 
now as deliciously absurd occurs at the end of one of 
his notes. "The reviewer," he said, "is, we believe, 
still alive; and from time to time employs himself in 
making mouths at distinguished men." 

Montgomery indeed would have been a singular 
young writer if his head had not been turned by his 
sudden and extraordinary and continuous success. 
There is no doubt that his head was turned and that 
it never re-turned to a normal position. To a certain 
extent also he was justified by the estimate of various 
persons in the opinion he entertained of himself. 
The admiration he excited was by no means confined 
to the members of the vast multitude who are num- 
bered but not weighed, though it was in its ranks that 
his poetry had mainly its circulation. Some of the 



POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 191 

periodicals which celebrated his merits occupied a 
high position in the critical world. Several of the 
persons who stood up for him were men of letters 
whose names carried respect anywhere and every- 
where. Sharon Turner and William Lisle Bowles 
were from the outset his friends and patrons. 
Southey, while not joining in the unmeasured lauda- 
tion heaped upon him, had no mean opinion of his 
abilities and achievements. Nor was Wordsworth's 
estimate unfavorable. He had read, he wrote to 
Montgomery, 'The Omnipresence of the Deity' with 
much pleasure, and while recognizing its faults, he 
saw also in the work indication of future excellence. 
Those who are familiar with the somewhat ponderous 
history of Europe written by Sir Archibald Alison 
may recall that in one place he mentions ''the noble 
poem of Satan." 

But no measured and lukewarm praise of this sort 
would have satisfied the feelings of his partisans. 
They looked upon Montgomery as a mighty intellectual 
luminary that had suddenly blazed forth with a 
splendor all its own. It was with them no unusual 
subject of congratulation that he had come to take the 
place made vacant by the death of Byron. As the 
latter author had in their opinion given up his great 
gifts to the service of the devil, they felt that his evil 
influence should be counteracted by furnishing the 
fullest development to the powers of another author, 
equal if not greater, who was possessed not only of 
genius but of piety, and was furthermore disposed to 
devote himself to the service of the Lord. Accord- 



192 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ingly measures were taken by certain of his admirers — 
among whom were two of the earliest sponsors of 
his reputation, Sharon Turner and William Lisle 
Bowles — to have his education continued and com- 
pleted. In February, 1830, he was matriculated at 
Lincoln College, Oxford, and in 1833 received the 
degree of A. B. He entered the church. Though he 
never gave up to the end of his life the production of 
poetry, he was largely diverted from its composition 
by the duties of the new calling he had chosen. Yet 
not one of the works he subsequently brought out 
failed to meet with favor from the public of purchasers. 
Nor did the sale of the poems which had previously 
appeared fall off while his life lasted, or even some- 
what later. In 1841 appeared, for instance, the 
twenty-first edition of 'The Omnipresence of the 
Deity,' in 1849, the twenty-fifth. In the catalogue of 
the British Museum is the twenty-eighth, and it bears 
the date of 1858, three years after its author 's death. 

Full as remarkable too was his success in the new 
calling he had chosen. After filling the pulpit success- 
fully in two provincial cities, he came to London in 
1843 as the minister of Percy Chapel in the parish of 
Saint Pancras. There he ofiiciated the rest of his life. 
Wherever he was, he seems to have been as popular 
as a preacher of sermons as he was as a writer of verse. 
There is a striking comment on this fact in a letter 
from Miss Barrett to Richard Hengist Home. **Are 
you aware, Orion," she wrote, *'that the most 
popular poet alive is the Reverend Robert Mont- 
gomery, who walks into his twenty and somethingth 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 193 

edition 4ike nothing'? I mean the author of 'Satan,' 
* Woman,' 'Omnipresence of the Deity,' 'The Messiah'; 
the least of these being in its teens of editions, and the 
greatest not worth a bark of my Flushie's. . . . But 
is it not wonderful that this man who waves his white 
handkerchief from the pulpit till the tears run in 
rivulets all round, should have another trick of oratory 
(as good) where he can't show the ring on his little 
finger? I really do believe that the 'Omnipresence of 
the Deity' is in the twenty-fourth edition, or beyond 
it, — a fact that cannot be stated in respect to Words- 
worth after all these years. "^ 

Yet in spite of the phenomenal favor of the reading 
public which waited upon Montgomery from the very 
beginning of his literary career to the very end of his 
life, his name would have disappeared as utterly from 
the knowledge of all men as it has from that of most, 
had it not been preserved in a sort of quasi-vitality by 
an attack in ' The Edinburgh Review ' intended to crush 
him entirely. This was the criticism by Macaulay. 
Had it not been for that article, both the man and his 
work would have passed away as completely from 
human memory as have the names and works of 
several others who have attained to something like 
the same temporary popularity but who have dropped 
quietly into the oblivion which sooner or later waits 
upon all inferior production, though encountering no 
assault from any quarter carrying weight. Of the 
innumerable attacks made upon Montgomery this is 

1 ' Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, addressed to Eichard 
Hengist Home,' 1877, Vol. I, pp. 91-92. 



194 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the single one which has survived ; and it has survived 
not because of its merits but because it has been 
included in the collected edition of the author's essays. 
It is the popularity of these other writings which have 
given to it a reputation for effectiveness which it did 
not have at that time and never deserved at any time. 
Of itself it had no claim to be reprinted. It is not 
merely inferior to most of the other similar but now 
forgotten attacks which had previously been published, 
it is so unfair in its criticism and so misleading in its 
statements as to be discreditable to its author. 
Macaulay to be sure, in writing it, was actuated by 
the noblest of motives — at least he tells us so. They 
are given in a letter sent by him in March, 1830, to the 
editor of 'The Edinburgh Eeview.' "There is," he 
said, *'a wretched poetaster of the name of Robert 
Montgomery, who has written some volumes of detest- 
able verses on religious subjects, which, by mere puffing 
in magazines and newspapers, have had an immense 
sale. ... I have for some time past thought that the 
trick of puffing, as it is now practised both by authors 
and publishers, is likely to degrade the literary 
character, and to deprave the public taste in a fright- 
ful degree."^ It was high time, he thought, to purify 
literature by exposing the methods by which worthless 
works succeeded in securing an extensive circulation. 
He therefore suggested that an attempt should be 
made to try what effect satire would have upon this 
nuisance. Accordingly in the April number of 'The 

1 Macvey Napier's 'Correspondence,' 1879, pp. 79-80. 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 195 

Edinburgh Review '^ — which however did not come out 
till the latter part of May — Macaulay set out to purify 
the public taste in an article entitled *Mr. Robert 
Montgomery's Poems and the Modern Practice of 
Puffing.' 

A temporate protest against the absurd estimate 
which had been expressed in numerous quarters of 
Montgomery's poetic achievement would not have 
been out of place, if it were deemed desirable to write 
anything at all about works which were destined 
ultimately to sink of themselves into oblivion. But 
such a protest was not likely to come from that quar- 
ter. Macaulay 's article, as was to be expected, was 
marked by his usual exaggerated emphasis. But what 
was much worse, it was disfigured by a series of mis- 
statements of the methods which had been followed 
in this case both by author and publisher. His line 
of reasoning, or rather of assertion, to account for 
Montgomery's extraordinary success ran essentially 
to the following effect. Men of letters had once been 
wont to court the favor of patrons by flattery. Now 
they sought to gain the favor of the public by means 
of puffing. He set out to show the various ways in 
which this nefarious practice of foisting candidates 
upon the favor of readers was carried on. It was 
primarily a sort of conspiracy between authors and 
publishers. By various devices duly enumerated they 
sought to gull the public. As the best illustration of 
the practice generally employed at that time he 
selected the writings of Robert Montgomery ** because 

1 Vol. LI, pp. 193-210. 



196 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Ms works have received more enthusiastic praise, 
and have deserved more unmixed contempt, than 
any which, as far as our knowledge extends, have 
appeared within the last three or four years." He 
then proceeded to select extracts from the two poems 
under review — 'The Omnipresence of the Deity' and 
* Satan' — to confirm the truth of his assertions. He 
somewhat grandiloquently closed his article with the 
declaration that if his remarks gave pain to Mr. 
Eobert Montgomery he was sorry for it ; but at what- 
ever cost of pain to individuals literature must be 
purified from this taint of pufiing. Not to be outdone 
in generosity, Montgomery, in his comments upon this 
review in the notes to his poem of ' Oxford, ' expressed 
regret if his remarks should cause Macaulay any 
suffering. 

Literature in the long run can safely be left to take 
care of itself. To whatever cause Montgomery's 
success is to be attributed, the reasons given for it by 
Macaulay had not the slightest foundation in fact, so 
far as this poet was concerned, even were they true 
in the case of other writers. His publisher, Samuel 
Maunder, himself a compiler of educational works, 
was, if all accessible information can be trusted, a 
man of upright character. Furthermore, while he was 
a respectable, he was far from being an influential 
man in his profession. Naturally he felt outraged by 
the charges and insinuations which had been brought 
against him from various quarters ; in particular that 
Montgomery's popularity was due to skilful and per- 
sistent puffing on his part, carefully planned and 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 197 

diligently carried out. He speedily made an indignant 
and effective reply in an 'Address to the Public.'^ It 
was evidently aimed mainly at Macaulay; but he 
neglected none of the various accusations which had 
been preferred by other critics. He began with the 
assertion that the most illiberal attacks had of late 
been repeatedly directed against him by certain review- 
ers, who in their zeal to destroy the popularity of 
Montgomery and in their attempts to account for the 
extensive sale of his poems had charged his publisher 
with having unduly raised that author into general 
favor by a system of puffing. He then took up the 
consideration of the various statements which had 
been specifically set forth to sustain this accusation. 
The system of puffing, Maunder observed, had been 
defined as resting on four grounds. First, the pub- 
lisher had his own review. Secondly, he exchanged 
favors with other reviews. Thirdly, he influenced 
public opinion through the agency of literary coteries. 
Fourthly, he bribed the periodical press. All these, 
he declared to be, so far as he was concerned, "a, 
deliberate and malicious calumny." The proof of 
this fact which he gave was overwhelmingly conclusive. 
First, he said he had no review of his own. Conse- 
quently he could not exchange favors with other 
reviews, and should disdain to do so if he could. He 
furthermore had no connection with any coterie. As 
to the final charge, he remarked that he had no money 
to bribe periodicals with, assuming that they could 
be bribed, which he did not believe. He said indeed 

1* Literary Gazette,' August 14, 1830, p. 534. 



198 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

specifically with some heat that he had *' never bribed, 
or paid, or offered to pay, any individual connected 
with the periodical press, to praise the works of Mr. 
Montgomery, or any other works" in which he 
had an interest. That any reputable or influential 
periodical was open to such inducements to sell its 
praise or blame was to him in truth inconceivable. 
In conclusion, he denounced as a gross abuse of criti- 
cism the attempt which had been made to damage his 
property and impugn his conduct on grounds, which, 
to use his own words, were *'at once malicious, scan- 
dalous, and false. ' ' Macaulay as one of the assailants 
was wise enough but also disingenuous enough to take 
advantage of his position in life never to reply to 
the exposure of his unsupported accusation. But 
he never withdrew it: in fact, by reprinting this 
article in his collected essays, he may be said to have 
reaffirmed it. 

There was hardly need for any protest on the part 
of the publisher in the eyes of any fair-minded person 
acquainted with the facts. Here was a young man 
who had barely reached his majority. He was a 
dweller in a provincial city. He was of mean, not to 
say base parentage. When he produced his first works 
he had none of the advantages of university training 
or association. He had no connection with men of 
influence, no interest with them beyond what their 
personal opinion of his abilities might excite. His 
publisher was equally powerless to help him forward 
in his career. To this new aspirant belonged not a 
single one of the external agencies which aid an author 



POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 199 

in the first instance to rise, many of which were con- 
spicuously present in the case of his most virulent 
assailants. Yet his first religious poem was received 
with enthusiastic acclaim by a body of professional 
critics, few if any of whom could have known him per- 
sonally, or even have heard of him ; or if they knew of 
him, what they knew had not been of a nature to lead 
them to think of him favorably. The mere recital 
of these facts proves the utter groundlessness of 
Macaulay's assertions. It is hardly necessary to add 
that his criticism, like those which preceded it and 
followed it, had not the slightest influence in purifying 
literature, so far as that was to be accomplished by 
destroying the continued sale of Montgomery's works. 
It did not hasten a single moment the approach of 
that oblivion which was sure to overtake them event- 
ually. It was not till the subject of his criticism had 
been for some time in his grave and even his name 
forgotten that this review by Macaulay was given 
credit for a destruction which it never had the slightest 
effect in bringing about. 

The names of some of those who believed seriously 
in Montgomery as a poet have been given, not because 
a favorable verdict on their part necessarily implies 
desert, but because it does show that there was some- 
where a real foundation for his popularity ; that it was 
no mere creation of the engineering of puffing set in 
motion by the author or his publisher. Still it remains 
a legitimate subject of inquiry what was it that led 
to this extraordinary and prolonged success. A 
cursory examination of the poems will show that they 



200 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

abound in commonplace thoughts set forth in pompous 
phraseology ; that the epithets are sometimes meaning- 
less, sometimes inappropriate ; that the lines are inter- 
spersed with unknown words, apparently the coinage 
of the author himself; that there is no central unity 
in the treatment of the theme, but that the whole is 
made up of a series of detached passages which could 
have been omitted altogether or could have been 
extended indefinitely, without in the slightest degree 
interfering with the development of the plot, whose 
parts have not the cohesion of orderly growth, but the 
adhesion of accidental suggestion, and were as appro- 
priate to one subject as to another. On the other 
hand, it is fair to say that Montgomery had been a 
diligent student of Dryden, Pope, and Goldsmith, and 
had learned to reproduce certain characteristics of 
their style with a good deal of cleverness. This trick 
of expression caught no small number of those who 
do not detect easily the difference between an imitation 
and an original. With all his verbiage, too, there was 
occasionally rhetorical pomp ; and while his ideas were 
commonplace, they were sometimes expressed in a 
striking way. His verse too was smooth, and as 
Dryden said of Settle's, it had a blundering kind of 
melody. Furthermore, what in later life added to his 
popularity was the excellence of his private life and 
the good which in many ways he accomplished. One 
is too often compelled to regret that individuals who 
intellectually are worthy of contempt will persist in 
being morally in the highest degree praiseworthy. 
Still, if we can confidently say that this phenomenal 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 201 

success — not the passing popularity of a day but 
extending over a lifetime — was not due to the agency 
imputed, to what shall it be attributed? The question 
is much easier to ask than to answer. Who can explain 
the immense sale of works of fiction in one generation 
of which the next generation knows nothing at all, or 
if it knows despises 1 Yet in the case of Montgomery 's 
productions there is one factor which will account in 
a measure for their warm reception by a certain por- 
tion of the public. This is the same agency that has 
caused the temporary success in the past of several 
works of a similar or an allied nature, and will cause 
the like success of others in the future. It is the appeal 
they make to a particular class of readers. They all 
treat of moral or religious topics. The subjects upon 
which Montgomery wrote are important in any view; 
to a large body of men they will always be of supreme 
importance. It is hard for a certain class of even 
well-educated persons, with ample opportunities for 
observation, to comprehend the fact; but there are no 
questions which appeal to so vast a multitude as those 
which treat directly or remotely of the relations of 
man to his Maker, and of the thousand and one matters 
of inquiry and discussion which concern the moral 
government of the universe. The interest they take 
in the theme not only attracts their attention to works 
dealing with it, but blunts distinctly the literary sense. 
By nothing are even able judges so easily imposed 
upon as by religious poetry, if they themselves are 
religiously inclined. They are disposed to accord 
exceptional ability to the writer who expresses in any 



202 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

new or striking way opinions which they hold or feel- 
ings with which they sympathize. It is in truth a 
singular fact that the moment any poem treats of the 
truths of religion in a tone indicative of fervent piety, 
the critical power of many intelligent men deserts them 
at once. ^VTien they find spirituality of sentiment 
they are easily led to believe in the existence of lit- 
erary inspiration. The good fortune thus resulting 
has fallen to the lot of several writers, and it fell to 
Montgomery on a grand scale. 

If feelings of this sort be occasionally true of per- 
sons of superior intellectual powers, how much truer 
are they of that immense body of serious men who, 
possessing limited literary taste, are insensible to 
high literary art, but who have ever before their eyes 
lofty moral and religious standards. Any production 
which tends to strengthen the hold of these is to them 
for that very reason attractive. If in addition they 
get the impression that it is literature in the high sense 
of the word, they have the satisfaction of feeling that 
not only is their spiritual nature elevated but their 
intellectual nature enriched. No composition of any 
sort will excite more general interest than under 
favoring circumstances does sacred poetry; for there 
is nothing a large share of the English-speaking race 
enjoy more keenly than being preached to. This 
feeling naturally shows itself in their attitude towards 
literature or what they consider literature. For them 
all other pleasures pale beside the reading of plati- 
tudes seasoned with morality and religion and gar- 
nished with the ornament of verse. To them is due 



POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 203 

the immense sale of works which have little to recom- 
mend them but the goodness or rather goodiness of 
the sentiments they convey. They honestly believe 
that they are appreciating fine poetry when they are 
simply listening with devout attention to common- 
place preaching. To this far from limited class 
of persons Montgomery's writings were addressed. 
What jarred upon the feelings of men of highly culti- 
vated literary taste was not to them in the slightest 
degree offensive. On the contrary it was often 
attractive. Still if the critics could not affect Mont- 
gomery's repute seriously with his contemporaries 
they have had their way with their descendants. 
They have succeeded in maintaining after his death 
the distinction which they set up during his life. In 
the new 'Dictionary of National Biography' several 
of these writers, whom no one ever reads now or has 
even heard of, are characterized as poets, while Mont- 
gomery himself is put down as a poetaster. 

The same fondness for cheap moral commonplace 
manifested itself in the Victorian period in the success 
which waited upon a book which was brought out a 
little later — more precisely speaking, towards the end 
of the fourth decade. In spite of its great sale 
in England, Montgomery's poetry had but little 
circulation in America. Not so with the 'Proverbial 
Philosophy' of Martin Farquhar Tupper, the first 
series of which appeared in 1838. Though taking 
nominally the form of verse it was not essentially 
different in its subject or its fortune from a prose 
treatise which came out nearly a century before. 



204 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

This was Robert Dodsley's 'The (Economy of Human 
Life,' which purported to be a translation from a 
Brahman manuscript. The imputed origin distinctly 
added to the favor it met; for there has always been 
a general feeling among the Western nations that 
wisdom resembles the sun in having its rise in the 
East. But what contributed even more to its imme- 
diate success was the report which seems to have been 
carefully fostered at the outset that the author of the 
work was Lord Chesterfield. At that time his name 
would sell anything. But without these agencies it 
would have achieved po'ijularity ; for it was made up 
of that cheap sort of moralizing which is peculiarly 
dear to the Anglo-Saxon heart. Though nothing more 
utterly commonplace was ever produced the work 
went through edition after edition during the eight- 
eenth century and even later. This success was more 
than repeated during the nineteenth century by the 
* Proverbial Philosophy' of Tupper. The circulation 
of the work was enormous in England; it was even 
greater in America. Before a half-century had gone 
by, hundreds of thousands of copies had been disposed 
of in the two countries. It is a somewhat striking 
fact that the three writers just mentioned met with 
such amazing success in the middle of the nineteenth 
century, so far as that is indicated by the sale of their 
works. It is as striking a fact that they are now 
scarcely known at all, or if spoken of are usually 
spoken of with derision. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE POEMS OF 1830 

Tennyson's prize poem had appeared in 1829. It 
was in the year following that the two brothers, who 
had brought out their first volume conjointly, appealed 
separately to the public. On the fourteenth of March 
appeared at Cambridge a volume of Charles Tenny- 
son's, entitled 'Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces.' About 
three months later — towards the end of June — was 
published at London by Effingham Wilson, Alfred's 
volume of 'Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.' It had been 
the original intention to have his productions come 
out in conjunction with those of Arthur Hallam. 
The poems of the latter were set up and a few copies 
were printed and distributed among his friends. 
But Hallam 's father preferred — very wisely pre- 
ferred — that his son's pieces should be withheld from 
publication. Accordingly Tennyson's poems were 
published by themselves. 

When this volume came out, Tennyson was still a 
minor. Attention has been called more than once to 
the fact that he had been early hailed by the little 
circle to which he belonged at Cambridge as the coming 
man. Notes and diaries of the men of that time have 
been preserved and printed. They are singularly 
unanimous in the tribute of admiration they pay to 



206 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

what they conceive to be the greatness of Tennyson 
and of his assured eminence in the future. But it was 
something more than the mere praise of a private 
circle that certain of his admirers sought for him now. 
They began at once an active propaganda to spread 
his fame far and wide. Naturally among these Arthur 
Hallam was foremost. Early the following year he 
forwarded the volumes of the two brothers to Leigh 
Hunt. That author had started in September, 1830, 
a daily journal called 'The Tatler.' It was devoted 
almost exclusively to literature and the drama. In 
his letter Hallam declared that Tennyson was the 
true heir to the kingdom of Parnassus, the throne of 
which had been vacant since the death of Keats. "I 
flatter myself," he wrote of the volume, *'you will, 
if you peruse that book, be surprised and delighted to 
find a new prophet of those true principles of Art" — 
it was Art with a capital letter — ''which in this 
country you were among the first to recommend both 
by precept and example." He repeated the remarks 
which by that time had become habitual with all 
dealers in doubtful poetical wares, that neither of the 
two poets, whose volumes he had forwarded, was 
likely to become extensively or immediately popular. 
They did not appeal to the world at large, which was 
known to abound in all evil, especially that of bad 
taste. They addressed on the contrary — here follow 
Hallam 's exact words — "the elect Church of Urania, 
which we know to be small and in tribulation. Now 
in this church," he continued, "you have preferment, 
and what you preach will be considered by the faithful 



THE POEMS OF 1830 207 

as a sound form of words." It was inevitable that 
the request should follow to which this preliminary- 
flattery had paved the way. ' ' If you agree, ' ' he added, 
''you will not perhaps object to mentioning them 
favorably in the Tatler."^ 

In his letter to Hunt, Hallam called also attention 
to a criticism of Tennyson's poems which had ap- 
peared in 'The Westminster Eeview' for January, 
1831. He attributed the authorship of it to Bowring 
who was the editor of the periodical. But he was not 
certain of it. There seems no sufficient reason to 
believe the ascription to be true and a good deal to 
think it to be false. Certainly it is to be hoped so, 
for the editor's own sake. It is enough to have to 
endure the responsibility of having admitted the 
article into the 'Review' without being compelled to 
bear the additional burden of having written it. Never 
were more absurd general views on poetry combined 
with more absurd special criticism. It justified all the 
abuse Christopher North subsequently heaped upon 
it, though not the way in which that was expressed. 

The article in the 'Westminster' was couched 
throughout in language which it would be weak to call 
laudatory. Considering the fact that if Tennyson's 
reputation had to rest on the volume of 1830, he would 
hardly be regarded as a poet of the third-rate order, 
it is difficult not to believe that the criticism contained 
in this review came from the partiality of personal 
friendship acting either directly or indirectly. If not 

1 Letter of January 11, 1831, in J. Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes of 
the Nineteenth Century,' Vol. I, p. 25. 



208 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

due to that, there was displayed a power of fore- 
seeing the future not often granted to the acutest of 
critics. For there was no moderation in the expres- 
sion of the praise. A great poet had arisen, at least 
a person possessed of great poetical power; and to 
the proper direction of that power the reviewer pro- 
fessed to look with anxiety. All this might be for- 
given to the enthusiasm of personal affection. What 
is unpardonable is the hopeless imbecility of the views 
set forth. **The great principle of human improve- 
ment," it declared, *4s at work in poetry as well as 
everywhere else." Such was the thesis maintained 
and illustrated. Criminal jurisprudence, we were told, 
was in the way of being reformed ; light was about to 
be shed over legislation; religion was becoming puri- 
fied; arts and sciences were made more available for 
human comfort. All this was due to the ever growing 
acquaintance that was going on with the philosophy 
of mind and of man, and to the increasing facility with 
which that philosophy was applied. Of course, it 
would be a pity if poetry were an exception to this 
great law of progression in human affairs. It was no 
exception. This law of progression it is, said the 
prophetic reviewer, that will secure also a succession 
of creations out of the unbounded and everlasting 
material of poetry. **The machinery of a poem," he 
went on to assert, ''is not less susceptible of improve- 
ment than the machinery of a cotton-mill ; nor is there 
any better reason why the one should retrograde from 
the days of Milton, than the other from those of 
Arkwright. ' ' 



THE POEMS OF 1830 209 

This is certainly a comfortable doctrine. It occa- 
sionally crops out in the history of criticism Unfor- 
tunately it is never exemplified in the works with which 
criticism concerns itself. Of machine poetry the re- 
marks of the reviewer may be true ; but hardly of the 
poetry of genius. With that the law of progression 
does not operate. Homer died fully three thousand 
years ago; that is, if he ever lived at all. Virgil 
flourished about two tlrousand years ago. Yet the 
world has not yet^seen any marked improvement upon 
the method these two poets followed and the results 
they obtained. Shakespeare was writing dramas more 
than three hundred years ago. So far, not alone in 
England, biit in all the countries of Europe, no plays 
have been brought to the attention of mankind which 
indicate a marked advance upon what he accomplished. 
That there will be variations in the form and fashion 
and creeds of poetry at different periods may be very 
likely; for the tastes and standards of one generation 
are not necessarily the tastes and standards of another. 
In consequence, men often think they have improved 
when they have merely changed. But genius has no 
past. It recognizes no law of progression. Certain 
conditions there may be essential to its birth and 
development. But these once given, it is independent 
of time and place and circumstance. It starts into life 
perfectly formed. 

This, however, was not the opinion of the 'West- 
minster' reviewer. He not only praised the philosophi- 
cal character of the poems of Tennyson, he was confi- 
dent that they would be the precursors of a series of 



210 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

productions which would beautifully illustrate his 
speculations and convincingly prove their soundness. 
In order io sustain this forecast of the future he 
heaped eulogy . 9,fter eulogy upon individual pieces. 
The author, he said, had the secret of the transmigra- 
tion of the soul. He could cast his own spirit into 
anything, real or imaginary. Scarcely Vishnu him- 
self became incarnate more easily, frequently, or per- 
fectly. Two of the poems-* /flfr^hing will Die' and 
'All Things will Die' — the reviewer' contrasted with 
'L 'Allegro' and 'II Penseroso.' He pronounced no 
opinion upon the comparative merits of the execution 
of these four, but he assured us that there is not less 
truth and perhaps a more refined observation in the 
point of view from which the subjects had been 
approached by the modern poet. As Tennyson him- 
self in the edition of 1842 suppressed these two partic- 
ular pieces, it is evident that he himself was not so 
struck by their superiority to Milton's as had been his 
reviewer. The amatory poems, the critic further re- 
marked, are expressions ''not of heartless sensuality, 
nor of a sickly refinement, nor of fantastic devotion, 
but of manly love." They illustrate, too, he told us, 
the philosophy of the passion, while they exhibit the 
various phases of its existence and embody its power. 
In his observations on the pictures of women as shown 
in the characterizations of Claribel, Lilian, Isabel, 
Madeline, and Adeline, he set no bounds to the dis- 
play of his ecstatic admiration. "His portraits," he 
wrote, "are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer 
for them) perfect, and they have life, character, and 



THE POEMS OF 1830 211 

individuality." The phrase in parentheses seems to 
imply that these were real beings who were described, 
and that the persons meant were known to the re- 
viewer. Though this is a natural interpretation, no 
confidence can be felt in any conclusions drawn from 
the language of an almost crazy panegyrist, and 
Tennyson himself denied any individual reference. 
In fact, no fault was found with anything contained in 
the volume, save a faint objection to the occasional 
irregularities of the measure and the use of antiquated 
words and obsolete expressions. 

Leigh Hunt in his turn responded at once to the 
suggestions which had been thrown out by Hallam. 
Four articles he wrote upon the poems of the brothers. 
Two of them appeared in the numbers of 'The Tatler' 
for February 24 and 26, 1831, and two in the numbers 
for March 1 and 3. The former were devoted mainly 
to Alfred Tennyson, the latter to Charles. He hailed 
them both as great coming poets. However well the 
prophecy has been fulfilled in the case of the one, it 
can hardly be called a successful prediction in the case 
of the other. ''We have great pleasure," he wrote, 
"in stating that we have seen no such poetical writing 
since the last volume of Mr. Keats; and that the 
authors, who are both young men, we believe at college, 
may take their stand at once among the first poets 
of the day." It is an interesting commentary upon 
the character of these productions that this expe- 
rienced critic found it difficult to decide as to the com- 
parative merits of the two brothers. He asserted that 
he could not make up his mind which of them was the 



212 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

better. It is evident, however, that his preference 
finally went to Alfred, and that the feeling of his supe- 
riority grew upon him as he continued the examina- 
tion of the respective volumes. It ought, however, to 
be added in all fairness that he had been assisted in 
reaching this point of view by Hallam. In his letter 
Hallam had said that while the work of Charles 
Tennyson showed a mind capable of noble sentiments, 
it was inferior in depth and range of thought to his 
brother's. This it very certainly was. 

But unlike th^ 'Westminster' reviewer, Leigh 
Hunt's criticism was no unmixed laudation. He sin- 
gled out pieces for blame as well as for praise. To 
one who is still innocent enough to put faith in the 
criticism of assumed or presumed literary experts, it 
will come as something of a shock to discover that the 
poem entitled 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights,' 
a few months later to be highly celebrated by Christo- 
pher North, met with little favor at Hunt's hands. He 
agreed, however, with the Scotch critic in having little 
patience with what may be called the patriotic poems. 
The 'National Song,' in particular, he condemned 
unsparingly. "We hold the National Song to be 
naught," he wrote. This was letting it off easily. 
There was certainly ample justification for the view 
he took of this little song, which, after suppression in 
later editions, Tennyson revived in 1892 in the play of 
'The Foresters.' There it fits more appropriately the 
mouth of the performers. In them the braggart char- 
acter pervading it is not so offensive under the circum- 
stances as it is in the song taken by itself. Patriotism 



THE POEMS OF 1830 213 

is a good thing in its place; but no excess of it can 
enrich poetry which is itself nothing but commonplace : 
while the patriotism in turn is rendered cheap by the 
inadequacy of the words to express the feelings which 
are entertained. The excited passions of the moment 
occasionally impart to pieces of this character a sort of 
vitality, which subsequent perusal in a different state 
of mind shows to be wholly unjustifiable. Later in his 
career Tennyson's intense national feeling lifted him 
at times into an atmosphere of high poetical achieve- 
ment. 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' will live far 
longer in his verse than on the pages of any historian. 
But too generally and in his early writings particu- 
larly, his patriotic utterances reach a height little 
above the vaporings of the commonplace man and 
manifest a spirit hardly creditable to the prejudices of 
the narrow man. 

Leigh Hunt, in awarding the superiority on the 
whole to Alfred, gave expression to the opinion gen- 
erally entertained by the best judges. That, too, 
accorded likewise with the estimate widely held in the 
circle of personal friends who surrounded the two 
brothers. Still, among them no confident tone was 
assumed in this matter. A dissenting opinion came, 
too, from quarters presumably carrying great weight. 
There was no recognition of Alfred's pre-eminence on 
the part of the two chief living poets. They awarded 
the palm to the elder. Wordsworth was at Cambridge 
in November, 1830. In a letter he wrote from there he 
bore witness to the local reputation of both the authors 
who had come out that year in print. "We have," he 



214 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

said, ''also a respectable show of blossom in poetry — 
two brothers of the name of Tennyson, one in particu- 
lar not a little promising.'" There is nothing in these 
words to indicate which of the brothers the veteran 
writer had in mind. From subsequent revelations, 
however, it is clear that it was Charles. In March, 
1848, Emerson called upon Wordsworth at Rydal 
Mount. In the course of the conversation the latter 
told him that ''he had thought an elder brother of 
Tennyson at first the better poet, but must now reckon 
Alfred the true one. ' '^ 

The same belief in the superiority of Charles to 
Alfred seems to have been taken by Coleridge. Written 
record of his opinions of the work of the former has 
been left behind in comments on the sonnets contained 
in a copy of the volume of the elder brother, which is 
preserved in the British Museum. He expressed much 
admiration for these sonnets generally and special 
admiration for several of them, mingled with specific 
criticism of words and lines. That entitled 'To a 
Lark' he declared to be one of the best in the language. 
He spoke of another, and indeed of a large propor- 
tion of them as standing "between Wordsworth and 
Southey and partaking of the excellencies of both." 
There was nothing in the work to justify this over- 
strained laudation, though it would not have been hard 
to rival Southey 's efforts in this kind. Coleridge's 
commendation of them is just as valuable as his glori- 
fication of the poems of William Lisle Bowles, by 

iW. Knight's 'Wordsworth,' Vol. Ill, p. 188. 
2 'English Traits,' Chap. XVII. 



THE POEMS OF 1830 215 

whose sonnets in particular he tells us that he was for 
years ^'enthusiastically delighted and inspired." His 
further individual censures of words and phrases have 
now lost their point, if indeed they had any in the first 
instance. Still, praise from such a presumed authori- 
tative source was valued highly. John Kemble wrote 
to his sister that Coleridge had expressed the highest 
admiration for the sonnets of Charles Tennyson.^ 
''The old man of Highgate has rejoiced over him," 
wrote Hallam also to Emily Tennyson.^ Unfortunately 
very few others rejoiced. His volume of sonnets seems 
to have fallen dead from the press. The only notice 
it received, so far as I can discover, is that of Leigh 
Hunt's which has already been given. One's faith in 
critical dicta suffers indeed a rude shock to find two 
of the greatest poets of the time expressing a prefer- 
ence for mild commonplace with occasional gleams of 
felicity over genuine originality, crude and undevel- 
oped as it then was. 

It is undoubtedly easy enough to be wise after the 
event. Yet, however differently it may have appeared 
then to Wordsworth and Coleridge, the modern reader 
has no more difficulty in recognizing the superiority 
of Alfred to Charles in their respective volumes of 
1830 than he has in recognizing the same superiority 
in their respective contributions to the collection, 
entitled 'Poems by Two Brothers.' Such was mani- 
festly the sentiment pervading at the time the circle 
surrounding the two Tennysons at Cambridge. It 

1 ' Biographia Literaria, ' Chap. I. 

2 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 75. 



216 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

represented the attitude of the general public. The 
sonnets of Charles encountered indeed both then and 
at later periods what was far worse than hostile criti- 
cism. They were not spoken of at all. It is pretty cer- 
tain indeed that the reception his first volume met 
from the public did not tempt him to try his fortunes 
speedily again. The life he led was henceforward a 
somewhat uneventful one; in some respects it must 
have been a disappointing one. He entered the min- 
istry, and in 1835 became curate of Tealby, in his 
native county. His choice of profession excited the 
regret of Leigh Hunt. '^I was fearful of what he 
would come to," he wrote to a friend, ''by certain mis- 
givings in his poetry and a want of the active poetic 
faith. ' " It was probably not so much a want of active 
poetic faith — whatever Hunt meant by that expres- 
sion — that decided his career, as his growing con- 
sciousness of his want of poetic ability. After two 
years of his Tealby curacy he became vicar of Grasby, 
a lonely village about three miles northwest of Caistor. 
His uncle, Samuel Turner, was a resident of this last- 
named place. By the will of this kinsman, he became 
heir to an income of five hundred pounds a year, on 
condition that he should change his name from Charles 
Tennyson to Charles Turner. This he did. On May 
24, 1836,^ he was married at Horncastle to Louisa Sell- 
wood, the youngest sister of the future wife of his 
younger brother. According to one report, a separa- 
tion speedily followed; but in 1849 the couple came 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 164. 
2 Hid., p. 148. 



THE POEMS OF 1830 217 

together again, after having lived apart for over a 
dozen years. ^ 

More than a third of a century passed before Charles 
Tennyson published another volume of verse. It could 
not have been the overshadowing success of his 
younger brother which led him to maintain silence. 
As we shall see, that success was deferred for a long 
time. It is much more likely that it was the loftiness 
of position which his brother had won that later led 
him to come again before the public. In 1864 appeared 
a volume of nearly one hundred sonnets with a dedi- 
cation to Alfred Tennyson prefixed. Additional vol- 
umes followed in 1868 and in 1873. After his death in 
1879 his poetical works were collected and brought out 
in 1880 in a single volume. They were accompanied by 
an introductory essay of James Spedding, which had 
appeared in a periodical the previous September.^ It 
was a most fervent eulogy both of the man and of the 
poet, though it is manifest that the polemic sonnets did 
not appeal to this most kindly of critics either for the 
spirit characterizing them or for their argumentative 
force. Of the others, however, he thought highly. 
Spedding indeed predicted that many of these "in- 
spired strains," would probably 'Hake place here- 
after . . . among the memorable utterances of our 
time." He further spoke of the author as one among 
the candidates for immortality who *'is entitled to a 
high place." The lifetime of a generation has gone 
by since these forecasts of the future were made. So 

I'The Journal of Walter White,' 1898, p. 142. 
2 ' Nineteenth Century,' September, 1879. 



218 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

far the verdict of posterity has failed to confirm the 
opinion of the reviewer. There is every indication 
that whatever repute Charles Tennyson may come to 
have in the future will be due to his brother and not 
to himself. 

As regards his career as an author, it was the for- 
tune or misfortune of Charles to give himself up almost 
entirely to the production of sonnets; and he who 
chooses to cultivate that field of poetical composition 
may well make up his mind in advance to leave all hope 
behind. After nearly a hundred years of intermis- 
sion this form of verse came once more into vogue in 
the early part of the second half of the eighteenth 
century. Resort to the use of it steadily increased 
after it had once been introduced or rather reintro- 
duced. From the beginning of the nineteenth century 
up to the present time addiction to it has raged with 
extreme violence; never probably more so than now. 
Perhaps no other form of verse has been for a long 
time so generally employed. Many certainly have 
been and still are laborers in the field; scanty is the 
harvest of value which has been produced. The reason 
is plain enough. The sonnet is the Procrustean bed of 
poetry. It is a purely artificial form of verse. It has 
a precise number of lines, it has a precise number of 
feet to the line. The expression of the thought may 
demand more space. That cannot be granted ; it must 
be cut off. More often the thought could be better 
expressed in fewer words. That, too, cannot be 
allowed. It must be stretched out to fill up the speci- 
fied number of lines. Add to this, that nearly all mod- 



THE POEMS OF 1830 219 

em producers of sonnets conform to the further 
requirements of a limited number of rhymes and of 
their precise arrangement. In a language so deficient 
as is the English in words having correspondence of 
sound, this fact lends additional difficulty to the task 
of their composition. "What do they seem fit for,'* 
wrote FitzGerald to Frederick Tennyson, ''but to serve 
as little shapes in which a man may mould very 
mechanically any single thought which comes into his 
head, which thought is not lyrical enough in itself to 
exhale in a more lyrical measure? The difficulty of 
the sonnet meter in English is a good excuse for the 
dull didactic thoughts which naturally incline towards 
it ; fellows know there is no danger of decanting their 
muddy stuff ever so slowly ; they are neither prose nor 
poetry. ' '^ 

It is no wonder in consequence that the results, even 
with those who are regarded as having succeeded, bear 
but a small proportion to the labor put forth. In mod- 
ern times, Wordsworth, of the great poets, has been 
the most successful cultivator of the sonnet. With his 
tendency to diffuseness its enforced compression 
proved often a distinct advantage. Yet it is perfectly 
safe to say that his fame in this particular rests upon 
fewer than half a hundred of these productions. All 
the rest could be dropped from his works without his 
reputation suffering a tithe of loss, though he wrote 
in all nearly four hundred pieces of this character. 
Him as regards number Charles Tennyson rivalled. 
His sonnets as found in the final volume just men- 

1 E. FitzGerald 's ' Letters and Literary Remains, ' Vol. I, p. 73. 



220 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tioned lack one of reaching three hundred and fifty. 
Many of them are marked by a certain plaintiveness 
and tenderness of expression; some of them contain 
fine lines, a few of them fine passages ; but there is not 
one of them which, as a whole, possesses distinction; 
and a sonnet without distinction has no ground for 
existing at all. As regards their content, too, no small 
number of the later sonnets were deformed by a po- 
lemic spirit which is characteristic of critical activity 
rather than of creative. Agnostics and believers in 
the higher criticism generally met with little mercy at 
the hands of this clerical dweller of the Lincolnshire 
wolds. Subjects of such a nature it requires genius of 
the highest order to lift out of the region of contro- 
versy into that of poetry; and genius of even a high 
sort Charles Tennyson did not possess. All of the 
sonnets taken together are hardly equal in value to 
*At Midnight,' the prefatory poem to the volume con- 
taining them, which his brother wrote on June 30, 
1879. 

Not such, however, was the belief of Alfred Tenny- 
son. He ranked a few of his brother's sonnets as 
being among the noblest in the language. He declared 
them to be ''wonderful." ''I sometimes think," he 
said on one occasion, "that, of their kind, there is 
nothing equal to them in English poetry."^ Nor was 
he altogether singular in this view. Henry Taylor 
thought that Burns had not written anything worthy 
to live twenty years ; that ninety-nine per cent of his 
production was worthless, and that nothing of it was 

1 H. D. Eawnsley's 'Memories of the Tennysons/ p. 101. 



THE POEMS OF 1830 221 

of such excellence as to found a poet's fame/ But he 
made up for his lack of appreciation of the Scotch 
writer by his enthusiasm for the sonnets of Charles 
Tennyson. * ' There are none in the language, ' ' he said, 
''more beautiful in their sincerity and truth. "^ The 
general opinion as reflected by their popularity and 
sale accords rather with the opinion expressed by 
the Brownings who considered Frederick Tennyson, 
though not a great poet, to be a distinctly better one 
than Charles. This conforms little, as we have seen, 
with Alfred's estimate. He put these sonnets below 
those only of Milton, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. 
'*I at least," he said to a visitor, ''rank my brother's 
next to those by the three Olympians."^ The rest of 
the world may respect the feeling which dictated this 
verdict of fraternal affection. Individuals may be 
found to concur with it ; but it is fairly safe to say that 
it will never become a widely accepted view, 

Hallam's efforts in behalf of the younger brother 
did not cease with his letter to Hunt. In April, 1830, 
a new monthly had been started by a London firm 
under the title of 'The Englishman's Magazine.' 
After the fourth number it passed into the hands of 
Moxon, the future publisher of so many poets. He 
put forth strenuous exertions for its success. He 
called to its aid all the authors he could command who 
had already acquired reputation or gave promise of 
acquiring it. The very first number which bore his 

1 ' Correspondence of Henry Taylor,' 1888, p. 188. 

2 lUd., p. 287. 

3W. A. Knight's ' Eetrospects, ' 1904, p. 49. 



222 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

imprint — that for August — mimbered among its con- 
tributors, Charles Lamb, Motherwell, Hood, Miss Mit- 
ford, Leigh Hunt, Gerald Griffin, and several other 
writers more or less prominent at the time. But 
though generally well spoken of, the undertaking 
did not succeed. An ominous advertisement, which 
appeared early in October, to the effect that two share- 
holders were wanted for the periodical, indicated that 
its fortunes were not on a secure basis. The two 
shareholders sought for apparently refrained from 
putting in an appearance. Accordingly after the issue 
for October the publisher decided to discontinue the 
magazine. 

To this first of the three numbers which appeared 
under Moxon 's management — that of August — Hallam 
contributed an article. It was entitled 'On Some of 
the Characteristics of Modern Poetry and on the Lyri- 
cal Poems of Alfred Tennyson.' At the time he com- 
plained to a friend that it was *'so execrably printed 
that every line contains an error, and these not always 
palpable."^ Unfortunately the error of the criticism 
was distinctly palpable. A portion of this article was 
reprinted by his father in the memorial volume which 
contained some of his son's writings. In that, how- 
ever, the part of it which dealt specifically with the 
various pieces of the new poet was omitted — omitted, 
too, very wisely. There was little restraint upon the 
praise heaped upon him, and the censure — which every 
critic feels compelled to bestow — was limited to a few 
slight cavils on the use of particular words. He spoke 

1 'Autobiography and Letters of Dean Merivale,' Oxford, 1898, p, 160. 



THE POEMS OF 1830 223 

of Tennyson as being of the school of Shelley and 
Keats. Both these he highly praised. He quoted in 
full the ' Eecollections of the Arabian Nights, ' ' Oriana, ' 
and 'Adeline.' The first of these was on the whole his 
favorite of all the poems. Some idea of the feeling 
about it he entertained as well as of the extravagance 
of his criticism may be inferred from his assertion that 
its sixth verse was as majestic as Milton and its twelfth 
as sublime as ^schylus. It was remarks like these 
which aroused the amusement and wrath of Chris- 
topher North. Leigh Hunt protested, too, at the time 
against the peculiar absurdity of representing him as 
the originator of a school to which belonged Shelley 
and Keats. He said very justly that there was nothing 
in common between those authors and himself but per- 
sonal regard, a common zeal for mankind, and a com- 
mon love of the old poets. He further exhibited the 
difference in the point of view by observing that 
Hallam's observations on Tennyson's writings were 
more to the purpose than the specimens he gave of 
them. In Hunt's opinion he had selected some of the 
least perfect and effective of the poems, apparently 
for the reason that they had been omitted by others. 

Facts such as these show how zealously the poet's 
friends were working in his behalf. There are indica- 
tions of this action on their part on every side. Milnes, 
while in Italy, received in February, 1831, a letter from 
his college friend, Monteith, one of the Apostles. 
*'Have you seen," wrote the latter, — "by-the-bye you 
cannot — the review of Tennyson's poems in the West- 
minster? It is really enthusiastic about him, and is 



224 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

very well written on the whole. If we can get him well 
reviewed in the Edinburgh, it will do." It hardly 
needs to be said that they did not get him well or ill 
reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' That lofty periodical 
was not flying at any such supposedly small game. 
Still, it would be unjust to suggest that the favorable 
notices which Tennyson received were in all cases due 
directly or indirectly to personal friendship. There 
was much in the poetry of his volume which appealed 
to those who were in sympathy with the genius of 
Shelley and of Keats. Accordingly no external agen- 
cies were needed for such men to give expression to 
their admiration. 

Two instances may be given in illustration. A re- 
view of the volume of 1830 appeared in the March 
number of 'The New Monthly Magazine' for 1831. 
The estimate expressed of Tennyson's volume was 
highly favorable. That fact was not due to any pre- 
vious understanding or any outside influence. On the 
contrary, the critic confessed that when encountering 
at the outset some corrections in the list of errata, he 
was prepared for merriment. It needed the reading, 
however, of but a few of the pieces to dissipate any 
expectations of that nature. He recognized at once 
the coming of a true poet. So far as I have observed, 
this was the only review of the time which pointed out 
distinctly the direct influence of Keats upon the new 
aspirant for poetic honors — for in Hallam's article 
this was stated only in general terms. But in Tenny- 
son this critic found all the characteristics which had 
given its distinguishing mark to the work of his prede- 



THE POEMS OF 1830 225 

cesser. "It is full," he wrote, "of precisely the kind 
of poetry for which Mr. Keats was assailed, and for 
which the world is already beginning to admire him. 
We do not mean that it contains anything equal, either 
in majesty or melody, to the 'Hyperion,' the 'Ode to 
the Nightingale,' or the 'Eve of St. Agnes.' But it 
does contain many indications of a similar genius. ' '^ 

The review in truth gave enthusiastic praise to much 
of the contents of the volume. While the existence of 
imperfections was conceded, the prediction was made 
confidently that here was a light which was destined 
to shine before men. Indeed unless we are to credit 
the reviewer with the possession of prophetic fore- 
sight, the laudation will seem too extreme. Yet there 
is no question that it was not only sincere, but was 
altogether unaffected by personal considerations. Nor 
was this the only one of the favorable notices which 
came from the outside. ' The Spectator, ' which a short 
time before had started on its long and creditable 
career, contained also what was on the whole a highly 
complimentary review. In it the critic confessed to 
having experienced an agreeable surprise in finding 
the work as good as it was. He had evidently been 
prejudiced against the volume by the knowledge that 
had come to his ears that its author had written a 
prize poem. What faults he found with him in his 
criticism were due to the fact that he expected to meet 
with him again.^ Sentiments of the same general 
nature, though much more briefly expressed, may be 

I'New Monthly Magazine,' Vol. XXXIII, p. 111. 
2 No. for May 8, 1830. 



226 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

also found in an early notice in 'The Atlas.'' That 
periodical, indeed, claimed later to have been the first 
to recognize Tennyson's genius. It is evident that in 
these criticisms considerations due to friendship had 
no weight whatever. 

1 No. for June 27, 1830. 



CHAPTER VIII 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 

We have seen that the criticism of Tennyson's first 
volume had been generally favorable. Not unnat- 
urally in the majority of the reviews of the period it 
was not spoken of at all. But nowhere was active 
hostility displayed. If there was dissent in any quar- 
ter from the enthusiastic praise which had been lav- 
ished upon it by some, it was not manifested publicly ; 
at least it was not in the organs which had the great- 
est influence with readers. A good deal of the com- 
mendation which his work had received was undoubt- 
edly due to the zeal of personal friendship, acting 
either directly or indirectly. But this had manifestly 
not been the case in certain instances. Much of the 
warm welcome which had been extended to Tennyson's 
first poems had come from independent and absolutely 
impartial sources. There is no question that in many 
quarters the volume of 1830 had made a distinctly 
favorable impression by its own merits. 

None the less had personal considerations played a 
great part in the most important notices which the 
work had received. There is no question that in these 
early years Tennyson was subjected to an undiscrimi- 
nating approval and even gross flattery which, had it 
been left unchecked, would have had a baleful effect 



228 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

upon the development of his poetic power. Up to this 
time he had not produced a single piece of the highest 
class. He had produced some which later he himself 
came to look upon with distinct disfavor. There was a 
great deal of promise in his work ; speaking compara- 
tively, there was little of performance. Had Tenny- 
son then died, the world would not only have remained 
generally ignorant of his achievement, but many of the 
few that had come to know it would have been dis- 
posed to deny him the capability of accomplishing 
anything that could be deemed worthy of much con- 
sideration. But even at this early period his partisans 
insisted that he had already accomplished great work. 
All that was peculiar and sometimes highly ornate was 
celebrated by them as evidence of a new and original 
vein. All that was vague was held up as marking 
depth of thought, as exhibiting penetration into the 
mysterious recesses of the soul into (Which it was 
granted to but few to enter. "That these poems will 
have a very rapid and extensive popularity we do not 
anticipate," said 'The Westminster Review.' ''Their 
very originality will prevent their being generally 
appreciated for a time." Originality there certainly 
was; but it was not that which stood in the way of 
their reception. There was in truth a good deal in 
these early poems to make a thoughtful critic hesitate. 
"With the possession of a vein of unmistakable genius 
and perhaps great poetic power plainly indicated, 
there was a certain proportion of magniloquence, a 
pomp of language too exalted for the ideas it clothed. 
There were passages of occasional mistiness, and 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 229 

what was worse, there were at times prettinesses of 
expression, a preciosity indeed which indicated that 
the Tennyson of that day was approaching danger- 
ously near the verge of namby-pambyism. 

Even had there been no defects of this nature, it is 
clear that the unmeasured laudation poured forth 
upon Tennyson by his friends would be certain to meet 
with protest. If Parnassus is to be taken by assault, 
it must be by the poet in person. It cannot be done 
by those who are fighting for him. They can aid ; but 
they can never put him in possession. In this instance 
the eagerness displayed by them to celebrate his 
achievement did him actual though temporary harm. 
The unwisdom of their course was pointed out at this 
early period by Trench, though he was thinking rather 
of the detriment wrought to the man himself than to 
his reputation. In writing to a correspondent he 
praised some of Charles Tennyson's poems. ''I 
think," he added, "his brother may be a much greater 
poet even than he is, but his friends at Cambridge will 
materially injure him if he does not beware ; no young 
man under any circumstances should believe he has 
done anything, but still be forward looking."^ Un- 
fortunately this was not the sentiment held by his 
young admirers. Their overstrained enthusiasm in his 
behalf was not only resented, it led to hostile demon- 
stration. In the end this latter proved a distinct bene- 
fit. From the harm which would have been wrought 
by the indiscriminate adulation he was receiving, 

1 Letter to W. B. Donne of June 23, 1830, in E, C. Trench's 'Letters 
and Memorials,' Vol. I, p. 74. 



230 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which sought to forestall public opinion and impose 
upon it a poet almost without asking its consent, 
Tennyson was saved by agencies which at the time he 
undoubtedly looked upon with disfavor. 

There was an ominous growl in what was on the 
whole a fairly favorable reference to Tennyson which 
appeared in the 'Noctes Ambrosianse' in 'Blackwood's 
Magazine' for February, 1832. It followed one of 
those periodic lamentations which came out then with 
the regularity of the seasons about the decay that had 
overtaken poetry. Christopher North is represented 
as saying that he saw no new poets appearing above 
the horizon. When he is asked if there are no 
"younkers," he replies: 

''A few — ^but equivocal. I have good hopes of 
Alfred Tennyson. But the Cockneys are doing what 
they may to spoil him — and if he suffers them to put 
their bird-lime on his feet, he will stick all the days of 
his life on hedgerows, or leap fluttering about the 
bushes. I should be sorry for it — for though his wings 
are far from being full-fledged, they promise now well 
in the pinions — and I should not be surprised to see 
him yet a sky-soarer. His 'Golden Days of good 
Haroun Alraschid' are extremely beautiful. There is 
feeling — and fancy — in his Oriana. He has a fine ear 
for melody and harmony too — and rare and rich 
glimpses of imagination. He has — genius." 

To this statement his interlocutor replies, ''Affecta- 
tions." 
\ "Too many," North answers. "But I admire 
/ Alfred — and hope — nay trust — that one day he will 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 231 

prove himself a poet. If he do not — then am I no 
prophet. ' ' 

This is certainly mingling a good deal of praise with 
a very little censure. It indicates, too, much greater 
prescience than is ordinarily possessed by the astutest 
of critics. But Wilson was as keenly alive to Tenny- 
son's defects as he was to his merits. Still, about the 
former he would probably have said little, had not 
his wrath been aroused by the gross flattery which had 
been heaped upon the poet under the guise of criticism. 
In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for the following May he 
returned to the author. It was the first attempt at a 
discriminating examination of the poems which they 
received; for Leigh Hunt's article, while condemning 
some of his pieces, had raised Tennyson to a height 
to which he had not as yet attained. Wilson's review, 
on the contrary, was a careful effort to point out what 
was good and what was bad in the work already accom- 
plished. His criticism had of course the defects of its 
writer's virtues. It was marked by the contempt which 
all of the Blackwood school of contributors felt or 
professed to feel for the body of authors whom they 
designated as Cockneys, and who had previously been 
accused of doing what they could to spoil Tennyson. 
Wilson naturally could not refrain from the accus- 
tomed fling. ''We shall not define poetry," he said at 
the beginning of his review, "because the Cockneys 
have done so ; and were they to go to church, we should 
be strongly tempted to break the Sabbath." 

This feeling it was which led Wilson to attack the 
praisers of Tennyson before he turned his attention 



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pinoqs 9Ai. 'qojnqo o; oS o:^ ifaq:^ 8j9av put? f os 9uop 9A^q 
Si£9tn[000 9q; 9sn^09q,, 'av9ia9j siq jo SnramSgq 9q; 
;^ piBS 9q ,/^j;9od 9n59p ;oii jpqs 9^,, -gmg pgrao; 
-snoDE 9q; inojj nrejj9J :^ou p^noo ^n^-i^^^^ «<5SIIAi 
•nos^uu9j[, liods 0; p^noo iCgq:^ :^^qAv Suiop jo p9snooi? 
U99q XtsnoTA9jd p^q oqAi puB 's7C9U5[ooq sb p9:^^nSTS9p 
i^9q:^ moqAV sjoq:^ii^ jo T^poq 9q:^ joj p9j o:^ p9SS9jojd 
JO ;pj sjo;nqTj;noo jo poqos pooAv^iOT^tg gq; jo n^ 
qoiqAi !^dui9:^noo 9q; ^q p95[j^ni s^av '^i -sgn^.iTA s, j9;tjas. 
s;i JO s;09j9p 9q; 9Sjnoo jo p^q msioi^ijo sig -pgqsnd 
-raooo^ A^vdJY8 5[jOAi 9q; m p^q s^a\. ;^qAV pue pooS sbav 
^^qAV ;no :^mod o:^ ;J0jf9 jnj9JT?o ^ sbav 'iCj^j^^uoo 9q:^ uo 
*Ai9iA9j s,uos|T^Y 'V^^]^n^ ^9^ SB ^ou pBq 9q qoiqA\. o:^ 
;qST9q 18 o; noSi^nn9x p9STBj p^q *S909Td siq jo 9inos 
Surain9puoo 9{iqAi 'epi'\n8 s,;imjj qSp^- joj fp9AT909j 
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V ;b ;din9;;B :^sjg 9q; sbai ;i -joq^riB 9q; o; p9Ujn;9j 
9q At3Y[ SuTAVonoj 9q; joj ,9mzB§B]^ s, pooAvijoBta; , ^I 
•rasTOT^TJO JO 9STnS 9q; J9puii ;9od 9q:^ nodn p9dB9q U99q 
pL'q qoiqAV Ai^^ig^ ssojS 9q:^ A(\ p9Sii0JB n99q q:^BJAi siq 
;on p^q <9i;:^n PI^s ^^^q iCjq^qojd ppoAV 9q J9injoj 
9q; :^iioqB 'ni;S 'S^ugin siq o; SBAi 9q sb s;99j9p s^uos 

-iiuU9Jj O:^ 9ATp if]Tl99I[ SB SBAV nOS|I^ ;ng -SOI^TJO JO 

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J9:^B9jS qonm 'oo; 's9;B0TpuT ;i -gjnsngo 9[;;t^ ^j9A b 

q;iAY 9STBjd JO p9p pOOS B gUT[STinn i^JUTB;j90 ST siqj^ 

on I niB n9q;— ;oii op 9q jj •;9od b jpsiniq 9A0jd 
T8S j^iaiASa S.HXHON aa^HrTOJ.STWTTf) 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 233 

which killed the magazine in which it appeared. ' ' The 
Englishman's Magazine," he wrote, ^' ought not to 
have died ; for it threatened to be a very pleasant peri- 
odical. An Essay 'On the Genius of Alfred Tennyson' 
sent it to the grave. The superhuman — nay, super- 
natural — pomposity of that one paper, incapacitated 
the whole work for living one day longer in this uncere- 
monious world. The solemnity with which the critic 
approached the object of his adoration, and the sanc- 
tity with which he laid his offerings on the shrine, were 
too much for our irreligious age. The Essay 'On the 
Genius of Alfred Tennyson, ' awoke a general guffaw, 
and it expired in convulsions. Yet the Essay was 
exceedingly well-written — as well as if it had been ' On 
the Genius of Sir Isaac Newton. ' Therein lay the mis- 
take. Sir Isaac discovered the law of gravitation; 
Alfred had but written some pretty verses, and man- 
kind were not prepared to set him among the stars. 
But that he has genius is proved by his being at this 
moment alive ; for had he not, he must have breathed 
his last under that critique. The spirit of life must 
indeed be strong within him; for he has outlived a 
narcotic dose administered to, him by a crazy charlatan 
in the Westminster, and after that he may sleep in 
safety with a pan of charcoal. ' ' 

Wilson now set out, as he said, to do justice to this 
ingenious lad, as he termed Tennyson. His object was 
to save him from his worst enemies, his friends. Praise 
he should have, but not in lavish profusion. ' ' Were we 
not afraid," he wrote, ''that our style might be 
thought to wax too figurative, we should say that 



234 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Alfred is a promising plant; and that the day may- 
come when, beneath sun and shower, his genius may 
grow up and expand into a stately tree, embowering a 
solemn shade within its wide circumference, while the 
daylight lies gorgeously on its crest, seen from afar 
in glory — itself a grove. ' ' But such a day would never 
come, Wilson assured him, if he did not hearken to the 
advice of his critic. *'We desire to see him prosper," 
he remarked; ''and we predict fame as the fruit of 
obedience. If he disobey, he assuredly goes to obliv- 
ion. ' ' In the spirit of the loving chastener he prefaced 
his praise by a number of blows from the accompany- 
ing crutch with which he was wont to deal out punish- 
ment to those in need of correction. 

Wilson first proceeded to point out poems in this 
volume which struck him as failures. The list was a 
fairly long one ; and it must be admitted that his stric- 
tures were not distinguished by any restraint in the 
use of vituperative epithets. The 'National Song' he 
characterized as miserable, as also the 'English War 
Song.' Both were fully entitled to the adjective. 'We 
are Free' was drivel, 'Lost Hope' was more dismal 
drivel. Even more dismal drivel still was ' Love, Pride, 
and Forgetf ulness. ' All these he accused of a painful 
and impotent straining after originality, and aversion 
from the straightforward and strong simplicity of 
nature and truth. The sonnet beginning 'Shall the 
Hag Evil die with child of Good' gave, he said, the 
impression of being idiotic. The piece entitled 'The 
Poet's Mind' was mostly silly, some of it prettyish, 
scarcely one line of it all true poetry. 'The How 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 235 

and the Why' was from beginning to end a clumsy 
and unwieldy failure. The pervading characteristic of 
' The Merman' was a distinguished silliness. The same 
impression appears to have been created on the critic's 
mind by 'The Mermaid' and 'The Sea-Fairies.' The 
two pieces 'Nothing will Die' and 'AH Things will 
Die,' so highly praised in the 'Westminster,' were 
only two feeble and fantastic strains. The poems on 
the various members of the animal creation further 
excited Wilson's wrath. 'The Dying Swan' he pro- 
fessed himself unable to understand; but as he had 
heard Hartley Coleridge praise the piece, he consented 
to believe that the lines must be fine. As for 'The 
Grasshopper,' Alfred was said to chirp and chirrup, 
though with less meaning and more monotony, than a 
cricket. The two songs to 'The Owl' next fell under 
condemnation, and Wilson wound up his attack by 
assailing 'The Kraken' which he regarded as incom- 
prehensible. 

It cannot justly be said that a tone of geniality per- 
vades comment of this sort. Some of the extracts 
given by Wilson — especially those which the writer 
in the 'Westminster' had adduced as to the poet having 
the secret of the transmigration of souls — had been 
selected for censure not so much to express contempt 
for them as for their critic. This reviewer Wilson 
styled at various times and in various places in his 
article on the poems as a crazy charlatan, a quack, a 
speculative sumph — a Scotch word for 'dunce' — but 
most frequently as the Young Tailor. One of the sen- 
tences about him is worth quoting as a specimen of the 



236 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

chastened style of critical disapproval then in use, 
especially among the contributors to 'Blackwood's 
Magazine.' Wilson cited an extract from the article 
of the reviewer he was attacking and then proceeded 
to comment upon it after this fashion. ''We could 
quote," he said, "another couple of critics" — he must 
have meant Leigh Hunt and Hallam — "but as the 
force of nature could no farther go, and as to make one 
fool she joined the other two, we keep to the West- 
minster. It is a perfect specimen of the super-hyper- 
bolical ultra-extravagance of outrageous Cockney 
eulogistic foolishness, with which not even a quantity 
of common sense less than nothing has been suffered, 
for an indivisible moment of time, to mingle ; the purest 
mere matter of moonshine ever mouthed by an idiot- 
lunatic, slavering in the palsied dotage of the extrem- 
est superannuation ever inflicted on a being, long ago, 
perhaps, in some slight respects and in low degrees 
human, but now sensibly and audibly reduced below 
the level of the Pongos." 

This is a specimen of the art of criticism as prac- 
tised in the first half of the nineteenth century by one 
of its very foremost professors. But the vehemence 
of the language, low as well as loud-mouthed as it fre- 
quently is, must not prevent us from recognizing the 
good sense that underlay many of the views expressed. 
It would be besides a gross mistake to fancy that the 
passages cited and opinions given furnish a true con- 
ception of this noted article. There is this to be said 
in the first place that in a number of instances the 
whole or at least a large part of the piece condemned 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 237 

was printed. The reader consequently, if he had any- 
critical sense — which, to be sure, he usually has not — 
was supplied with the means of forming his own 
opinion. In the instance of 'The Poet's Mind,' Wilson 
said that as it had been admired by several, he quoted 
it entire, so that if he were in error, the author would 
triumph over the critic, and Christopher North stand 
rebuked before the superior genius of Alfred Tenny- 
ton. But, furthermore, while he gave up half of his 
article to heaping abuse upon Tennyson's adulators 
and upon a number of the poet's own productions, the 
second half was wholly devoted to his praise. ''Hav- 
ing shown," said he, "by gentle chastisement that we 
love Alfred Tennyson, let us now show by judicious 
eulogy that we admire him ; and, by well-chosen speci- 
mens of his fine faculties, that he is worthy of our 
admiration. ' ' 

He carried out this intention fully. Wilson quoted 
in most laudatory terms the part or more usually the 
whole of several poems — the 'Ode to Memory,' 'The 
Deserted House,' 'A Dirge,' 'Isabel,' 'Mariana,' 
'Adeline,' 'The Sleeping Beauty,' 'Oriana,' and 
'Recollections of the Arabian Nights.' It is a singu- 
lar illustration of the different effect wrought upon two 
persons, specially susceptible to poetic influences, that 
this last-named poem, which Leigh Hunt had disposed 
of so cavalierly, was reckoned by Wilson the highest 
of all Tennyson's achievements. He printed it in full. 
He further declared himself in love with all the poet's 
maidens in addition to those already mentioned — with 
Claribel and Lilian, with Hero and Almeida. Indeed, 



238 LIFE AND TEVIES OF TENNYSON 

as he approached the conclusion he half apologized for 
the pre\T.ous language of depreciation. He declared, 
in correcting the critique for the press, he had come to 
see that its whole merit, which was great, consisted in 
the extracts. ''Perhaps," he said, ''in the first part 
of our article, we may have exaggerated Mr. Tenny- 
son's not unfrequent silliness, for we are apt to be 
carried away by the whim of the moment, and in our 
humorous moods, many things wear a queer look to 
our aged eyes, which fill young pupils with tears ; but 
we feel assured that in the second part we have not 
exaggerated his strength — that we have done no more 
than justice to his fine faculties — and that the millions 
who delight in Maga will, with one voice, confirm our 
judgment — that Alfred Tennyson is a poet." With 
some further words of advice and warning ended an 
article which was indirectly destined to have a marked 
influence over Tennyson's literary fortunes during the 
years immediately following. 

Before taking up, as will be done in subsequent chap- 
ters, the consideration of the part which this review 
was incidentally to play in the history of Tennyson's 
reputation, the question naturally arises: Can it be 
deemed unfair? — unfair, of course, in what was said, 
not in the way in which it was said. We know that 
in the mind of the poet, with his peculiar susceptibility 
to critical censure, it awakened deep irritation. So it 
did in the little circle which surrounded him. Hallam 
was naturally indignant ; for the blow from the crutch 
which Christopher North professed to ^vield, fell as 
heavily upon him as upon the man he had praised — 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 239 

in fact, more so. But he, as well as the other critics 
singled out for disparagement, was wise enough to 
keep silence. Not so, in this instance, was Tennyson. 
His action was contrary to his usual custom. There 
were two occasions in his life in which he allowed his 
resentment to overcome his natural disposition. In 
the one case he was fully justified in the reply he made 
to an unprovoked attack; and his retort not merely 
silenced his assailant, but prevented any further pub- 
lic display of the antagonism which at heart he con- 
tinued to feel. Yet even of this reply, fully warranted 
as it was, Tennyson almost immediately repented. He 
regretted its publication. But in the present instance 
there was no real ground for the retort which he made 
not hastily, but after fullest deliberation. Happy 
would it have been for his peace of mind, happier still 
for his immediate success^ if he had left entirely to 
others protest against the action taken by the critic. 

For such protest there was. It came too from 
sources outside of the circle of Tennyson's enthu- 
siastic Cambridge friends. The boisterous character 
of Wilson's article with its alternate contumelious 
and commendatory utterances naturally attracted 
attention everj-^vhere. 'The Spectator,' for instance, 
in a re^^.ew of the May magazines, spoke of this 
particular article as the only one in the 'Blaclavood' 
of that month worth reading. It led the critic to 
designate it as an extravaganza on account of the 
alternate blame and praise it gave. ''When Wilson 
sits down to write," said 'The Spectator,' "the world 
appears to him a mere game at nine-pins or perhaps 



240 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

lie is the incarnation of the immortal Punch — he sets 
all law at defiance, slaps, bangs, and stabs both 
friends and foes, and all in the merest gayety of heart. 
In the article we are speaking of, which is on the poems 
of Alfred Tennyson (a young poet of genuine talent), 
Mr. Wilson first sets to and abuses, with a charming 
play of the imagination and an unsparing application 
of slang, Mr. Tennyson and all his critics; he seems 
animated with the bitterest contempt for the whole 
party, and withheld no opprobrium; the poet's imbe- 
cility is proved by extracts of every kind; and the 
critics fall of course with the work they have praised. 
When the unhappy bard is sufficiently bespattered — 
after he has been laid prostrate, has been pommeled 
and bruised, with all the means of annoyance that 
science and bottom can apply to his discomfiture, — 
the writer seems, not to repent of his work, but seized 
with a sudden passion of setting up the idol he had 
pulled down. The miserable spectacle of a poet is 
raised on high ; although the dirt is not cleared away, 
it is gilded over with praise as hearty as the abuse; 
and the Ebonite retires with the satisfaction of having 
both unmade and made a poet. This is the last trick 
of our Periodical Punch ; he is a fellow of infinite wit 
and talent, but as to their employment he has never 
yet been troubled with any conscientious scruples. ' " 

In no brief time Tennyson came to have ample 
reason for regretting the exhibition of the anger, 
which, as we shall see, he was led to express. But was 
there much real ground for dissatisfaction? That the 

1' Spectator,' May 5, 1832, p. 424. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 241 

article was written, at least a good deal of it, in the 
rough rollicking style which characterized the reviews 
found in the ' Blactw'ood ' of that early period, it is 
needless to remark. That magazine did not always 
treat with respect the writers it really reverenced. 
No one was safe from its attacks. The foibles and 
weaknesses of Wordsworth were at times mercilessly 
pointed out in the periodical which had done most of 
all to exalt him and to convert unpopularity or indif- 
ference into partisanship. Naturally if Wordsworth 
could not escape, there was little likelihood of a new- 
comer being treated with excessive courtesy. In this 
instance he was certainly not. Besides the direct 
denunciation of particular pieces in the article, the 
tone of patronage running through it was unquestion- 
ably offensive. To a man who had already achieved 
great reputation it would have been in the grossest 
possible bad taste, though it is unnecessary to add that 
this fact would not have prevented Wilson from 
exhibiting it, if the whim had chanced to seize him. 
But we have to bear in mind that Tennyson at that 
time was scarcely known outside of a very limited 
circle. Accordingly can the review as a whole be 
deemed unfavorable? Against the unsparing con- 
demnation of about half of the poems mentioned in it 
and the tone of condescension which pervades all of it, 
must be set the unstinted praise of particular pieces and 
above everything else the ungrudging recognition 
that at last had come a man who, if his powers were 
developed along the right lines, would become a poet 
whom the world would honor. 



242 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Tennyson came to be almost universally recognized 
by bis contemporaries as tbe supreme poet of the 
Victorian era — by nearly all of them, it may fairly be 
added, whose opinions are entitled to much consid- 
eration. Of course there was no time in his career 
in which he was not to some extent the mark of hostile 
criticism — coming too, though in a very few instances, 
from men of recognized ability. That is an experience 
which no man of genius has ever escaped or ever will 
escape. But in general it may be confidently said that 
the later attitude towards him of the cultivated public 
was never seriously affected or his own reputation 
shaken by the attacks of his depredators. This body 
of censurers, too, was largely made up of broken- 
winded poets and broken-down critics. Nor has this 
estimate been really disturbed since his death, as the 
steady sale of his works proves conclusively. Yet it 
may also be said that to many of the warmest of his 
later admirers, Wilson's review will seem — as regards 
its matter, not its manner — to have erred on the side 
of partiality. It is doubtless an unneeded proof of the 
finer and keener critical sense of Christopher North 
as compared with most modern students of literature, 
that with all the knowledge we possess of what Tenny- 
son was and actually accomplished, few there are who 
would now be disposed to accredit him with genius 
of a very high order on the strength of the poems 
contained in the volume of 1830. 

That the work in question displayed poetic ability 
was certain. But there are many young writers who 
display poetic ability who never reach the height of 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 243 

poetic power. Nor will many modern readers share 
in the intense admiration which Wilson bestowed upon 
the Lilians, Claribels, Adelines, Isabels, and other 
somewhat vague female characters which flit through 
so many pages of Tennyson's early poetry. They 
certainly disappeared in process of time from the view 
of the general public. It is fairly safe to assert, with 
little danger of the statement being successfully chal- 
lenged, that were it not for his succeeding work, not 
one educated man in ten thousand would know that 
these fanciful beings had ever existed at all. They 
were in a way attractive; but it was the novelty of 
these characterizations that made them attractive, not 
so much the characterizations themselves. Nor are 
the warmest admirers of the poet now likely to deny 
that in the first volume were some dreadful things. 
That Tennyson came to think so himself before the 
review in 'Blackwood's Magazine' appeared, we know 
from incontestable sources. These admissions ought 
to be made here because the later attitude of Wilson 
to the poet reveals him, as will be seen, as clearly in 
the wrong as in this case he was in the right. 

Before the publication of his next volume of verse 
Tennyson was drawn into contributing to a number 
of periodical publications then in much vogue. These 
collectively were called the Annuals. During the 
period of the poet's youth they occupied a conspicuous 
though not an important place in the literature of the 
transition period. Their full history has never been 
written; by some, perhaps by many, it will not be 
thought worth writing. Yet for the part they played 



244 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

in the literary activities of the second quarter of the 
nineteenth century, for the number of great names 
they enrolled in their list of contributors, but here, 
in particular, for the connection, slight as it was, which 
Tennyson had with them, a brief history of their origin 
and character can hardly be deemed out of place. 
Consequently before proceeding to the account of his 
second poetical venture, the story of the Annuals and 
of his contributions to them will form the subject of 
the following chapter. In order to make this part 
of the subject complete in itself, so far as he is con- 
cerned, it will include the consideration of all the pieces 
of his which appeared in publications of this nature 
before the appearance of the ^ Poems* of 1842. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE ANNUALS 

Part One 

The Origin and History op the Annuals 

In the history of literature, at least of modern liter- 
ature, there appears at pretty regular intervals a 
class of productions which strike the popular fancy 
and meet for a while with phenomenal success. 
Usually they are of the nature of periodical publica- 
tions. As extent of circulation is the main object of 
their promoters, with the pecuniary results that attend 
it, the aim of these persons is to gain for their enter- 
prise the benefit of great or at least well-known names. 
They frequently secure the men; they rarely secure 
the expected corresponding matter. One gets, in 
truth, from examining most of this class of productions 
the impression that there seems to be among the best 
authors, who contribute to them, a real, though 
unavowed, determination to do their worst; to see 
just how badly they can write ; as if periodical publi- 
cations of this kind had been set up mainly for the 
purpose of carrying oif the literary refuse which had 
been stored away in the garrets of the great; or 
perhaps for offering a safe means for the expulsion 



246 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of certain noxious intellectual humors which had been 
fermenting in their brains. 

Students of literary history can call to mind the 
existence at various periods of several sorts of publi- 
cations which fulfilled the functions just described. 
The work they are wont to accomplish was performed 
in the second quarter of the nineteenth century by 
what were then called the Annuals. Their origin 
belongs to the early part of the third decade. In the 
London papers of November and December, 1822, 
appears an advertisement inserted by Rudolph Acker- 
mann, a fine-art publisher, who was well and widely 
known for the illustrated books and periodicals he 
was in the habit of bringing out. It ran to this effect : 
< ' Forget Me Not ; or Annual Pocket Chronicle, to serve 
as a token of Friendship and Affection at the approach- 
ing season; with thirteen highly-finished engravings 
by Agar; containing interesting Tales, Poetry, a 
Chronicle of Remarkable Events, a Genealogy of the 
Reigning Sovereigns and their Families, a list of the 
Ambassadors at the different courts, and a variety 
of other useful articles of reference." Then followed 
the description and price of the volume. 

This book, bearing the date of 1823, was the pioneer 
of the publications specifically styled the Annuals. 
These for the next twenty years occupied a con- 
spicuous if not an important position in the literature 
of the times. They did not die out entirely till more 
than thirty years had gone by. As will be inferred 
from the advertisement, the volume was originally 
planned for people of diverse tastes. It had engrav- 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 247 

ings for those who thought themselves fond of the fine 
arts. It had poetry and fiction for those who consid- 
ered themselves lovers of literature. Besides all this 
it appealed to that thirst for useful information which 
is supposed to spring perennial in the human heart. 
It furnished a collection of facts, especially about the 
courts of Europe, their rulers and the diplomatic 
bodies connected with them, which, it was assumed, 
would make it of especial value for consultation and 
reference. For those, too, who were fond of statistics 
the population of the principal cities of the globe was 
given. 

The venture must have been successful. Not only 
did a second volume come from the same publishing 
house at the end of the following year, but another 
work of a similar character was brought out by a 
London bookseller, named Lupton Relfe. Its title was 
* Friendship 's Offering, or the Annual Remembrancer. ' 
This was described in the advertisement which ap- 
peared towards the end of 1823 as a Christmas 
Present and a New Year's Gift for the year 1824. 
''This little volume," it added, *'in addition to the 
usual pocket-book information, contains a series of 
highly finished continental views by artists of the first 
eminence, two very splendid emblazoned title-pages, 
a presentation plate and other embellishments. It 
contains also a new Tale of Temper, several original 
poems by Mrs. Opie, songs, quadrilles. Intended to 
imitate the long and highly celebrated continental 
pocket-books. ' ' 

These two works— 'The Forget Me Not' for 1823 



248 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

and for 1824, and 'Friendship's Offering' for 1824— 
are the Annuals in their first stage. As has been seen, 
they were avowedly imitated from the Almanachs and 
Taschenbuchs which had long been in use in Germany. 
They contained a certain portion of purely literary 
matter with a sprinkling of historical and statistical. 
Their aim consequently was to appeal on the one side 
to the lovers of fashion and amusement, on the other 
to those in pursuit of useful knowledge. The two aims 
are not absolutely incompatible, but experience has 
demonstrated that from a business point of view they 
ordinarily succeed best when prosecuted separately. 
This fact had not escaped the attention of a man of 
letters who had the peculiar gifts which fitted him 
to gain distinction in the management of undertakings 
of this kind. The person alluded to was Alaric 
Alexander Watts, who in contemporary literature had 
the Hunnish Attila frequently added to his Gothic 
personal name, in place of the Alexander, with which 
he had been baptized. In 1824 he was successful in 
persuading the publishing house of Hurst and Robin- 
son to engage in the production of a literary and 
artistic miscellany on certain lines which he had 
marked out. These were distinctly different from 
what had prevailed before. Accordingly in November, 

1824, came out under his editorship 'The Literary 
Souvenir, or Cabinet of Poetry and Romance' for 

1825. This new venture discarded everything entirely 
which partook of a temporary nature. It contained 
nothing in the shape of useful information. It pan- 
dered to no diseased appetite for statistics. It even 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 249 

abolished the almanac. It based its claim to favor 
largely upon the contributions of as many of the most 
famous writers of the day as could be obtained, but 
also upon embellishments by well-known engravers. 
On this latter feature special stress was laid. 

The undertaking was looked upon by those concerned 
in it as an experiment. But in that condition it did not 
remain long. Even before its publication its success 
had become assured in the minds of both projector 
and publisher. At first it was thought that as many 
as 2,000 copies could be printed with safety. Then 
the number fixed upon rose successively to 3,000, to 
4,000, to 5,000 copies, and finally settled upon 6,000. 
The book had not been out two weeks before the pub- 
lisher sent to the projector an exulting paean on its 
triumph, and the failure of envious rivals to retard 
its majestic march to supremacy. He made no secret 
of the serene satisfaction he felt in contemplation of 
the noble motives which animated his own course — 
emotions which are apt to sway the minds of men 
when things are moving in a way to suit themselves. 
**We are going on gloriously," wrote Robinson to 
Watts, ''with the 'Literary Souvenir'; and altogether 
living above the malice of our enemies; and enjoy in 
our own breasts nobler feelings, pursuing the direct 
course of business, disregarding all tricks, and selling 
more books than they! You may rely upon it, next 
year we will sell ten thousand copies." 

The success of the new publication was so pro- 
nounced that there was nothing for the rival firms to 
do but to follow in the path which 'The Literary 



250 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Souvenir' had marked out. It further led to the 
setting on foot of numerous undertakings of a similar 
character. There sprang up in consequence a mush- 
room growth of these publications which threatened 
to destroy the prosperity of all by reducing the profits 
of each to an inadequate amount. Their common aim 
was to secure the finest engravings for the embellish- 
ment of the volume in question and to enroll the most 
celebrated names among their contributors. For a 
while, their increasing number did not interfere with 
their success. Towards the end of the third decade 
of the century the struggle between the various sorts 
of these publications already established and the new 
ones constantly projected may fairly be described as 
fierce. Annuals were devised to meet the tastes, the 
feelings, and the prejudices of particular classes. If 
one succeeded, an imitation of it was sure to follow. 
For instance, ' The Amulet, ' founded by Samuel Carter 
Hall, came out in 1826, with an avowed appeal for 
support to the religious community. This was plainly 
indicated by its sub-title of 'Christian and Literary 
Remembrancer.' As might be expected, a similar 
publication called ' The Iris ' soon made its appearance. 
In truth, it was not long before Annuals came into 
existence which touched upon every subject in which 
the human mind is, or appears to be, interested. 
There were geographical Annuals; there were mis- 
sionary Annuals; there were biblical Annuals; there 
were botanical Annuals; there were musical Annuals, 
and inevitably a number of comic Annuals, of which 
Hood's was the most successful, and retains even to 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 251 

this day something of the original reputation it then 
acquired. Appeals were made also to local and 
national feeling. There were provincial Annuals; 
there were English Annuals; there were Scottish 
Annuals; there were British Annuals. It was about 
the beginning of the fourth decade that publications 
of this nature showed the most distinct tendency to 
specialize. This was particularly true of those of 
them in which the pictorial was designedly made the 
main attraction. Of this class, there sprang up among 
others oriental Annuals, landscape Annuals, conti- 
nental Annuals. These finally reached their culmina- 
tion in such publications as 'The Book of Beauty' 
and 'Finden's Drawing Eoom Scrapbook. ' There 
were other classes besides. As early as 1829, juvenile 
Annuals appeared on the scene and for several 
years maintained themselves successfully. Even 
infant Annuals were brought out. Furthermore, an 
Annual — *Le Keepsake Frangais' — appeared in the 
French tongue. It was published both at Paris and 
London, but it is from the latter place that the 
inspiration for its existence manifestly came. On the 
list of its contributors appear the names of some of 
the most eminent Frenchmen of letters. For instance, 
in its second volume — that for 1831 — are to be found 
articles by Beranger, Chateaubriand, Dumas, Merimee, 
Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Sainte-Beuve. 

The most serious rival of the original Annuals was 
* The Keepsake, ' undertaken by Charles Heath, a noted 
engraver of the time. It first appeared towards the 
end of 1826. From the outset this publication was 



252 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

remarkable in several ways, and later it became even 
more so. It was projected on a much more elaborate 
and expensive scale than any of the Annuals which 
had preceded it. Against the dozen or so of engrav- 
ings furnished by its predecessors, it contained twenty- 
one. It was sold for a guinea while their price had 
been but twelve shillings. Much money was spent on 
the illustrations ; some even of the smaller plates cost 
from a hundred to a hundred and fifty guineas. The 
contributors to the first volume of this Annual were 
anonymous, but the engravings had made the work 
so successful that in the volumes succeeding the initial 
one of 1827, names were attached. The work became 
particularly noted for its list of titled contributors, 
the nobles, the honorables and the right honorables, 
both men and women. In consequence it speedily 
assumed a specially aristocratic and exclusive char- 
acter, the rank of the writer frequently supplying the 
lack of merit in the writing. This distinguishing trait 
was remarked as early as the volume for 1832. "The 
Keepsake," said 'The Literary Gazette' of October 1, 
1831, *'has the most aristocratic list of contributors — 
there are very few common names." 

It was of course impossible that all of these publi- 
cations could continue to flourish in the intense 
competition that was going on. Several of them died 
with the year of their birth. Three or four years was 
the utmost life to which several others attained. Nor 
was it a long time before they had all entered upon 
the downward road. A change had taken place in the 
public taste. Accordingly they began to fall into 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 253 

positive disrepute. "What a few years since," said 
the preface to the 'Forget Me Not' of 1837, *4t was 
the fashion to commend and extol, it appears now to 
be the fashion to sneer at and decry." Their down- 
ward course was still further noted in the volume for 
1842 of the same publication. ''Certain it is," said 
the editor, ' ' that the Annuals, from especial favourites 
of the public, have come to be regarded almost with 
indifference. ' ' To the observant it was plainly evident 
that their career was practically closed. Several of 
them continued to exist much later, and occasionally, 
a new one was projected. But it had become manifest 
that the disappearance of all was merely a question of 
time. 'The Forget Me Not,' the original publication 
of this class, was discontinued with the volume for 
1848: its earliest competitor, 'Friendship's Offering,' 
had died four years before. They dropped out one 
by one in the fourth and fifth decades of the century, 
though they continued to survive till the sixth decade. 
The final volume of 'The Keepsake,' for instance, was 
that for 1857. 

During the heyday of their popularity, however, 
no fear was entertained of their ultimate failure. 
The main purpose they served was that of supplying 
Christmas and New Year's gifts. If Emerson's view 
be correct that things useful are not best fitted for 
such purposes, the Annuals approached as near his 
ideal as anything that could have been devised. As 
the custom of making presents was never likely to die 
out, it did not occur to the projectors of these volumes 
that the desire for them would ever disappear. This 



254 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

object, while the scheme was novel, they admir ably- 
fulfilled. In fact, they practically supplanted all other 
gifts of books and to some extent gifts of any sort. 
Southey, who was always fertile in devising reasons 
why his poetry did not sell save the obvious one that 
people did not care to read it, naturally recognized in 
these volumes a new obstacle to the circulation of his 
own works. He gave it as an explanation to his friend 
Grosvenor Bedford. ''The Annuals," he wrote to 
him in December, 1828, ''are now the only books 
bought for presents to young ladies, in which way 
poems formerly had their chief vent." The same 
sentiments he repeated the following March in a letter 
to Ticknor. "With us," he wrote, "no poetry now 
obtains circulation except what is in the Annuals; 
these are the only books which are purchased for 
presents, and the chief sale which poetry used to have 
was of this kind." 

There is no question indeed that for a while the 
number disposed of for this purpose was very large. 
They not only drove almost all other gift books out 
of the market for the holidays, but they also came 
to be used as birthday presents. Hence their sale 
continued to some extent the whole year round. 
Accordingly, it was natural, as already intimated, that 
during this time of their popularity their promoters 
should indulge the highest hopes of their continued 
success and be ready to pay enormous sums in expec- 
tation of it. "The world (bookselling world)," wrote 
Scott to Lockhart in February, 1828, "seem mad 
about 'Forget-me-nots' and Christmas boxes. Here 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 255 

has been Heath the artist offering me £800 per annum 
to take charge of such a concern, which I declined, of 
course."^ In this same month Southey wrote that 
Heath had been to see him to ask for a contribution 
to the ^Keepsake.'" He had told him, Southey says, 
that fifteen thousand copies had been sold the year 
before and that for the following year four thousand 
yards of red watered silk had been bespoken for 
binding. It is well to remark here that no sooner was 
the volume for one year out than the work of preparing 
for that of the following year began. 

No one who examines carefully these publications 
and studies their history can fail to note certain points 
as being especially characteristic of all. Between the 
rival promoters there existed keen emulation as to the 
number of authors of repute they could secure as 
contributors. Naturally their attention was directed 
at first to the highest names. But just as naturally 
these were few. Furthermore, they were difficult to 
get, and as time went on they came to be expensive 
when got. Like most publishers they preferred articles 
they did not have to pay for. To some extent they 
succeeded, especially at the outset. They searched 
accordingly the whole literary world for contributors. 
Scarcely any writer, who had even the smallest body 
of adherents or imitators, was overlooked. No aspir- 
ant who gave the slightest promise of future fame 
was frowned upon. Men prominent in the political 
and social world were cordially welcomed. The 

lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol, II, p. 22. 

2 ' Life and Correspondence of Eobert Southey, ' 1850, Vol. V, p. 322, 



256 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

conductors of these publications were in fact looking 
for both old and new names with all the earnestness 
which characterizes, or at least is said by themselves 
to characterize, magazine editors of the present day. 
The consequence was that any one who had the 
slightest pretension to be regarded as occupying the 
pettiest of positions in the world of letters was sure 
to be asked to become a contributor. 

Nobody, in fact, could escape, however much he tried. 
Youth was pressed into service and age was not 
exempt. Even Hannah More, who was past fourscore 
and had lived long enough to survive her reputation, 
was resurrected. Writings were imported from 
America, where as a matter of course the fashion 
had been imitated. Here the engravings were dis- 
tinctly inferior; and hard as it may seem to have 
attained that result, the literary matter was even more 
vapid. Many American authors appear, however, in 
the English publications. Irving, it was natural, 
would be secured. The names of Bryant, Whittier, 
N. P. Willis, and Willis Gaylord Clark are found in 
volumes of 'The Literary Souvenir.' A prose piece 
of Hawthorne's, entitled 'Uttoxeter,' appeared in 
'The Keepsake' for 1857. 'The Forget Me Not' for 
1839 informs us in the preface that it would be seen 
"that the fair American contributors whom we last 
year introduced to our readers have again favoured 
us with productions of their accomplished minds." 
These fair American contributors were Mrs. Sigourney 
and Miss Hannah Flagg Gould. These names are 
mentioned here not even for the languid interest they 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 257 

now excite in us, but for the fact of their appearing 
at all. Their inclusion is merely indicative of the 
efforts put forth to secure contributors from every 
quarter. 

In truth, the wide-embracing maelstrom swept into 
its vortex the greatest and the poorest authors. The 
compositions of statesmen, divines, and critics, the 
unpublished writings of the dead, the hasty effusions 
of the li\dng never designed to be printed — all these 
were eagerly searched for and seized upon. Hardly 
a writer escaped from contributing, no matter what 
his opinion of the works themselves. For a while 
Wordsworth held out. He wrote to a personal friend, 
who was an editor of one of the Annuals, that he had 
laid down for himself a general rule not to contribute 
to these publications. But later the price offered 
seems to have been too much for his literary austerity ; 
at least no other reason for his change of view is 
apparent. Generally, however, contributions were 
secured, wherever possible, without payment. At 
least no payment was made where at times it was 
manifestly expected. Charles Lamb was one of the 
sufferers of this sort. No one had a greater contempt 
than he for these "combinations of show and empti- 
ness,"^ as he designated this class of publications. 
His feelings about them had been naturally aggra- 
vated by their failure to pay for his contributions. 
**Do not let me be pester 'd with Annuals," he wrote 
to Bernard Barton in August, 1830. ''They are all 
rogues who edit them, and something else who write 

1 Letter to Bernard Barton, October 11, 1828. 



258 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

in them. ' ' He spoke from experience ; for he had been 
inveigled into enrolhng himself in the class of fools 
in spite of Ms assertion that the sight of one of these 
year-books made him sick. *^I have stood off a long 
time from these Annuals, which are ostentatious 
trumpery," he had written to Barton in 1827; but 
he had finally been obliged to succumb at the urgent 
request of a friend. A little later he bore witness to 
their success in gaining the highest names. ''Words- 
worth, I see," he wrote in 1828, *'has a good many 
pieces announced in one of 'em. . . . "W. Scott has dis- 
tributed himself like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of 
all the poets, Gary has had the good sense to keep 
quite clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right 
notions. . . . Coleridge . . . too is deep among the 
prophets, the year-servers, — the mob of gentlemen 
Annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know."^ 

But after all, the body of writers, be it great or small, 
is limited. This fact brings us to the consideration of 
another point. It soon came to be noticed that the 
same names appeared year after year as contributors 
to the same Annuals. Landor, Disraeli, and Bulwer, 
for instance, could be regularly found among the 
authors of the articles contained in Heath's 'Book of 
Beauty.' But even more noticeable is the extent to 
which the same names appear during the same year 
as contributors to different Annuals. There was 
naturally a desire on the part of some of the publishers 
to secure for themselves certain authors and a refusal 
on the part of these to write for others. In their view 

1 Letter to Barton, October 11, 1828. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 259 

it was a case where silence was golden. On account 
of the keenness of the competition, however, this was 
by no means easy to carry into execution. Further- 
more, it was pecuniarily burdensome. Accordingly 
when it did happen, it was due more to the indolence 
of the writer than to the enterprise or willing expendi- 
ture of the publisher. The consequence was that a 
somewhat monotonous list of names turns up with 
almost unfailing regularity in these publications. 
Campbell, Montgomery, William Lisle Bowles, Mil- 
man, Allan Cunningham, Southey, Hogg, Barry 
Cornwall, Horace Smith, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 
Mrs. Hemans, Miss Mitford, came upon the scene 
everywhere. These are but a few taken at random 
from the number of those who might be mentioned. 

Less frequently met with are other names in dif- 
ferent Annuals, but they are far from infrequent in 
some one or two. This is true in particular of writers 
like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Moore, Rogers, 
Mackintosh, Lockhart, Bulwer, Disraeli, Landor, Car- 
lyle, and Miss Barrett, to mention a few. But the 
general truth is that the greater the number of con- 
tributors he raked together, the prouder was the pro- 
jector and the more confident was his appeal to the 
public. Ackermann prefixed to 'The Forget Me Not' 
for 1831 a poem entitled 'An Incantation.' It was 
designed to celebrate the glories of what had been 
accomplished in the realms of art and literature in the 
Annual for that year. It was in this way he signalized 
his poetical contributors and justified the demand he 
made upon the public for its support: 



260 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Croly shall our page inspire 

With his grandeur, strength, and fire; 

And Montgomery's holy strain 

Win back earth to heaven again. 

Here with Campbell's taste is blent 

Delta's heart-felt sentiment; 

Here is Landon 's sweetness stealing ; 

Here is Hemans ' depth and feeling ; 

Here is Cornwall's manly mind, 

. . . not to tell of hosts behind. 

The publisher unquestionably felt that it would require 
peculiar hardness of heart on the part of the purchaser 
to resist so stirring an appeal to his higher nature. 

It is clear indeed that one of the causes which led 
to the disrepute into which the Annuals fell was the 
too frequent recurrence of the same names. The usual 
contributors soon became too usual to suit the taste 
of the public. Complaints on this score, if not then 
loudly expressed, were very plainly implied. But 
there was a further justification of this fickleness of 
public opinion. It was an unfortunate but it was none 
the less a distressingly manifest fact that the majority 
of contributors seem to have labored to do their 
poorest. In the case of some of them, to be sure, there 
was no necessity for any particular exertion in that 
direction. But poorness of work was often charac- 
teristic of articles which were the production of the 
greatest authors. The array of names was splendid; 
but to that adjective the contributions were not 
entitled. This state of things began to be noticed 
early. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 261 

The degeneration in the character of the poetry in 
particular speedily attracted general attention. It 
was admitted even by the projectors of these works, 
especially by those of them who had not always been 
successful in securing the most eminent authors. ''It 
has been justly observed," said the editor of 'The 
Forget Me Not' for 1830, "in regard to the contri- 
butions of persons of the highest literary repute to 
works of this class, that the merit of such contributions 
has generally been in an inverse ratio to the fame of 
the writers." The poorness of the contributions in 
verse, as contrasted even with those in prose, speedily 
became one of the most distinct impressions made upon 
the minds of readers. As early as 1829 one of the 
reviewers of the Annuals drily remarked that Helicon 
was running low that year. It must not indeed be 
inferred that these publications did not contain pieces 
that were of permanent value from the point of view 
of literature pure and simple. In fact, some of the 
best or at least the best-known poems of certain 
authors made in them their first appearance. In 
'The Gem' for 1829 appeared, for instance, Hood's 
* Dream of Eugene Aram,' and Lord Houghton's 
song of 'I wandered by the Brookside' came out in 
'The Book of Beauty' for 1839. Still the occurrence 
of fine poetical compositions in these publications is 
exceptional. It may be added that in 'Friendship's 
Offering' appeared more than a score of Ruskin's 
poems, though this fact is more interesting to bibliog- 
raphers than to lovers of poetry. 

In truth, as time went on, one of the most noticeable 



262 LIFE AiATD TIMES OF TENNYSON 

features connected with the Annuals was the poorness 
of their literary matter. Such a result was inevitable. 
Alaric Watts, in setting the fashion which the Annuals 
came to assume, had taken the step he did because he 
was convinced that a book of entertainment and a 
book of reference could not be joined in a publication 
of this sort with much success as a business invest- 
ment or as an artistic venture. It was now to be 
demonstrated that literature and pictures could not 
be united in the same publication without one yielding 
the precedence to the other. The result was in the air 
from the beginning. From the very outset the work 
of the engraver had been of more importance than 
that of the writer. The picture was not so much 
designed to illustrate the letter-press as the letter- 
press was prepared to illustrate the picture. There 
is one of Thackeray's novels which gives a very vivid 
view in many ways of the literary decade from 1830 
to 1840. Its readers will remember that the Honorable 
Percy Popjoy 's contribution describing the view of a 
lady entering a church was a little too bad to be 
endured in spite of its aristocratic origin. Pendennis 
accordingly supplies its place by writing the well- 
known poem entitled 'The Church Porch.' 

Earely was it the case, if ever so, in which the place 
was so well supplied as in this imaginary instance. 
The articles of the Percy Popjoys are the articles 
that are pretty uniformly found in the Annuals. The 
picture might or might not be good; but the text 
written to illustrate it was fairly certain to be poor. 
The history of these publications shows in spite of 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 263 

occasional exceptions a steady tendency towards 
degeneration in the literary matter they contain. 
The two things were in a measure incompatible. 
Scott with his practical sense saw this plainly. When 
the editorship of 'The Keepsake' was offered to him, 
he gave to the projector a perfectly clear reason why 
nothing could be gained by the union of two things 
which had little in common. **I pointed out to Mr. 
Heath," he wrote, "that having already the supe- 
riority in point of art, I saw no great object could be 
obtained by being at great expense to obtain as great 
superiority in literature, because two candles do not 
give twice as much light as one, though they cost 
double price. ' ' The advice too was sound for another 
reason. The Muses, as daughters of the same parents, 
have doubtless a good deal of family affection among 
themselves; but after all they are women, and natu- 
rally and justly tolerate unwillingly a divided alle- 
giance. Each one is inclined to be jealous of the others, 
and is not apt to bestow her full favor upon him who 
wavers in his devotion between her and one of her 
sisters. Literature in particular is a jealous mistress 
of the mind. The moment her art is subordinated to 
that of another, whether it be music or painting, she 
is apt to become ungracious. 

In fact, it may be doubted if the commercial spirit 
which was at the bottom of these ventures was itself 
favorable to art, even though it purported to make art 
the supreme object. Popularity must be secured no 
matter how much truth might be defied. Nothing 
therefore must be done which would stand in the way 



264 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of a large sale. William Bell Scott tells us how one 
day he called upon Kenny Meadows who painted the 
water-color heads for Heath's Annuals. He found 
him contemplating in a meditative way two drawings 
on his easel representing Mrs. Page and Anne Page. 
''What do you think of these now as a pair — mother 
and daughter?" he asked of his visitor. Scott of 
course did the only safe thing in giving them praise. 
''Well," rejoined Meadows, "I have shown them to 
Heath, and he insists on Mrs. Page being as young as 
her child! I objected, for many reasons," continued 
the artist, though to men generally one alone would 
have seemed all-sufficient. "Oh," replied Heath to 
Meadows 's remonstrance, "I don't care about her 
maternity, or Shakespeare, or anything else. You 
must not make her more than twenty, or nobody will 
buy! If you won't, I must get Frank Stone to do her 
instead. All Frank Stone's beauties are nineteen 
exactly, and that's the age for mel"^ 

1 William Bell Scott's 'Autobiographical Notes,' Vol. I, p. 114. 



CHAPTER X 

THE ANNUALS 

Part Two 
Tennyson's Contributions to the Annuals 

Tennyson, as the man whom the little knot of 
Cambridge enthusiasts looked upon as the poet of the 
future, was not likely to be neglected by the editors 
of the Annuals. Accordingly in the very same year 
which witnessed the publication of his earliest inde- 
pendent book of verse, three poems of his came out 
in 'The Gem.' This was an Annual which had origi- 
nally made its appearance towards the end of 1828. 
Its first volume was under the editorship of Hood, 
though he retained that position only a year. Tenny- 
son's contributions appeared in the volume for 1831, 
and were of course published in the autumn of 1830. 
They were entitled, respectively, 'No More,' 'Anacre- 
ontics, ' and 'A Fragment. ' It cannot be said that there 
is anything remarkable or particularly promising in 
any one of the three. The first leaves on the mind 
the impression that the author is trying to say some- 
thing which it is beyond his power to express. The 
sense of inadequacy is made perhaps unduly apparent 
because both poem and subject inevitably suggest the 



266 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

nnrhymed song in 'The Princess,' usually entitled, 
when separated from its context, 'The Days that are 
no more ' ; and that is one of the few pieces which have 
reached the high-water mark of lyrical achievement 
in our tongue. 'Anacreontics' again is very ordinary. 
The third and longest contribution is the best of all, 
but it cannot be justly spoken of as in itself specially 
distinctive, still less distinguished. It is written how- 
ever in blank verse, and displays fully the character- 
istics of that measure as it was to be exemplified in 
the poet's later work. 

Three sonnets of Tennyson also made their appear- 
ance in these Annuals. One of them, 'Check every 
outburst, every ruder sally,' was originally published 
in August, 1831, in the short-lived 'Englishman's 
Magazine. ' As that periodical died two months after- 
ward, and never had a large circulation, some of the 
pieces which had been published in it were republished 
in 'Friendship's Offering' for 1833. Among them was 
this poem. The year before another sonnet had 
appeared in one of these publications, entitled 'The 
Yorkshire Literary Annual.' This particular volume 
seems to have been designed to appeal to the inhabi- 
tants of the North of England. It was dedicated to 
Lord Morpeth, who contributed an opening poetical 
address celebrating the merits of Yorkshire. The 
work, according to the editor's introduction, was 
intended "to afford amusement for the leisure hour, 
and to promote the hilarity of the winter's evening, 
by a diversity of subject; and to dispose it in such a 
manner as to form a combination at once pleasing to 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 267 

the eye, and gratifying to the taste." The result 
hardly answered to the lofty language of the preface, 
and this particular Annual never appeared again. 
Tennyson 's contribution began with the words : 

There are three things which fill my heart with sighs. 

It was apparently an outcome of his summer trip to 
the Pyrenees in 1830. It purports to be inspired by 
a maiden whom he had seen of late. 

In old Bayona nigh the Southern sea. 

It may be added that this Annual contained also a 
sonnet by Edward Tennyson, the brother next in age 
to the poet. Finally another sonnet beginning 

Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh 

appeared in * Friendship 's Offering' for 1832. None 
of all these contributions just mentioned were included 
by him in the editions of his poems which appeared 
either in 1832 or in 1842. They did not deserve to be. 
These just-mentioned contributions to the Annuals 
made up everything which Tennyson published inde- 
pendently after the volume of 1830, and before the 
appearance of the volume of 1832. In them he had 
remained faithful, even if unconsciously, to the un- 
written but understood rule which proscribed distin- 
guished merit to anything which appeared in the 
columns of these publications. Yet the same critical 
admiration on the part of his Cambridge friends which 
greeted all his efforts, waited also upon these produc- 



268 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tions. Milnes, who was travelling at tlie time upon 
the Continent, wrote to his father to send him 'The 
Gem.' The request evidently surprised the parent, 
though he forwarded him the desired volume. ''If 
you had only looked at the Gem," the son wrote in 
reply from Venice in March, 1831, "you would have 
seen that I only sent for it, because it contained some 
of Tennyson's finest poetry." It would have been a 
pretty poor outlook for his permanent reputation, had 
this estimate been true. The opinion of disinterested 
or indifferent readers was by no means so favorable. 
The only notice of his contributions which appears 
in any prominent critical journal can hardly be deemed 
enthusiastic. In fact, Tennyson had already begun to 
get a faint foretaste of the hostile criticism which was 
to teach him the folly of expecting to have reputation 
conferred upon him either by the agency of personal 
friends or of professional reviewers. 'The Gem' was 
noticed in ' The Literary Gazette ' for October 16, 1830. 
It praised the volume highly and made a number of 
extracts. But to the three pieces for which this 
Annual for that year is now chiefly valued — not, to be 
sure, for their worth, but for the fact of their exist- 
ence in it — the following contemptuous comment was 
accorded. "To Mr. Tennyson's poems," remarked the 
critic, "we can only say, in the words of Shakespeare, 
'They are silly, sooth.' " The punctuation of the 
quotation, whether intentional or not, is the reviewer 's 
own. 

But if none of these early contributions to the 
Annuals had particular merit, no such criticism can be 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 269 

passed on the two poems which are the only pieces of 
his which broke the ten years' silence that followed 
the publication of the volume of 1832. For the sake 
of completing the subject these are to be considered 
here. During the four years which followed his second 
venture, nothing new of Tennyson's writing appeared 
in any of the Annuals or anywhere else. For those 
which had previously appeared in them he had received 
no pay. He doubtless expected none ; but he probably 
had a preference for being treated with common 
decency. *' Provoked by the incivility of editors," he 
wrote in December, 1836, "I swore an oath that I 
would never again have to do with their vapid books. ' ' 
The oath, however, had not been kept. In * The Keep- 
sake' for 1837 — which came out early in November, 
1836 — appeared one of the most exquisite of his minor 
poems, 'St. Agnes.' This Annual was then under the 
editorship of Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, who 
after a fashion was herself a poetess. It was appar- 
ently through the agency of his college friend. Brook- 
field, that Tennyson was induced to contribute. It is 
manifest from her conduct that the editress had as 
little conception as the average critic of that day of 
the treasure she had secured. 

A second time he broke his oath. In the spring of 
1836 a gift-book, got up according to the usual form 
of the Annuals, was projected for the benefit of a 
graduate of Cambridge University, who was at that 
time the editor of the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. ' 
This person was a clergyman of the name of Edward 



270 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Smedley. He was a writer of popular historical works 
which have now been forgotten and of poetical pieces 
which have never been remembered. Smedley was, in 
truth, a very facile writer of verse and seems to have 
been taken seriously by some of his friends as a poet. 
In this fourth decade of the century, his health was 
breaking down, partly under the burden of literary 
exertions which his strength did not permit him to 
endure. In fact, shortly after the project designed 
to aid him was set on foot, he died. The scheme, 
however, was not abandoned. The preparation of the 
volume was continued with the intention of devoting 
the proceeds of its sale to the support of his family. 
Its editor was a lord, the Marquis of Northampton. 
A great effort was put forth to gather as contributors 
the most considerable names in literature ; and though 
nothing was paid for the articles, it was fairly success- 
ful in this particular. Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, 
Landor, Henry Taylor, James Montgomery, and scores 
of others more or less noted in letters, were repre- 
sented, besides a large number of men prominent in 
political life. The work appeared at the end of August, 
1837, under the title of 'The Tribute, a Collection 
of Miscellaneous Unpublished Poems by various 
Authors, edited by Lord Northampton.' Strictly 
speaking, the work cannot be included among the 
Annuals. It corresponds rather to the volumes under 
the title of Miscellanies which came out in the reign 
of Queen Anne and the first Georges ; but in spirit as 
well as in form it was like the publications of the 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 271 

gift-book character, which had so long been the rage. 
Here accordingly the account of it belongs. 

The articles for this volume were not secured with- 
out considerable effort. Among the most active of Lord 
Northampton's coadjutors was Richard Monckton 
Milnes. He sought to lay under contribution all his 
poetical friends, or perhaps it would be more compre- 
hensive to say — it is certainly more exact — all his 
friends who wrote poetry. Trench, Alford, Spedding, 
Aubrey De Vere, Julius Hare, even Whewell were 
called upon by this indefatigable solicitor. In most 
cases he succeeded. Tennyson of course could not 
escape. From him, however, he met at first with a 
gruff refusal. That the Marquis had been assured by 
Milnes that Tennyson would write for the publication 
something exceeding the average length of contribu- 
tions to the Annuals, or that he would write for the 
volume at all, was treated as an elegant fiction. The 
poet recited his previous oath and his failure to keep 
it. ''I brake it," he went on to say, '4n the sweet 
face of Heaven when I wrote for Lady What's-her- 
name Wortley. But then her sister wrote to Brook- 
field and said she (Lady W.) was beautiful, so I could 
not help it. But whether the Marquis be beautiful or 
not, I don't much mind; if he be, let him give God 
thanks and make no boast. To write for people with 
prefixes to their names is to milk he-goats; there is 
neither honour nor profit. Up to this moment I have 
not even seen The Keepsake: not that I care to see it, 
for the want of civility decided me not to break mine 
oath again for man nor woman. And how should such 



272 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

a modest man as I see my small name in collocation 
with the great ones of Southey, Wordsworth, R. M. M., 
etc., and not feel myself a barndoor fowl among 
peacocks ? ' ' 

Great was the wrath of Milne s at the reception of 
this letter. He at once wrote an angry reply to his 
friend — of a nature indeed which he certainly would 
never have ventured upon in later days when that 
friend's name and fame filled the land. What he said 
has not been preserved. The epistle went up Tenny- 
son's chimney, and its contents can be inferred only 
from the reply it received. From that it is evident 
that Tennyson's banter had been spoken of by Milnes 
as ''insolent irony," and that several personal reflec- 
tions were indulged in as to the character and conduct 
of his correspondent. The letter grieved as well as 
surprised the poet. His reply was perfectly good- 
tempered and in every way deprecatory of the wrath 
he had unwittingly aroused. Unjustifiable in some 
ways as was much which Milnes manifestly said, like 
many other unjustifiable things, it was productive of 
good. Tennyson himself not only agreed to contribute 
but to procure contributions from his brothers Fred- 
erick and Charles. In this he was partially successful. 
When the volume appeared, it included two poems of 
the latter. 

Neither of the poems of C. T. Tennyson, as his name 
appears in this volume — and not Charles Tennyson 
Turner — need now be regarded. Nor are the contri- 
butions of scores of men prominent at that time in 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 273 

literature or society or politics worthy of attention. 
The real value of this so-called Annual consists almost 
exclusively in the one poem with the simple heading 
of ' Stanzas, ' which Alfred Tennyson then contributed. 
It began with the line "Oh that 'twere possible." 
This, we all know now, was the nucleus about which 
was subsequently built up the poem of 'Maud.' It is 
unfortunate that this piece should never have been 
reprinted in its entirety in the editions of his works 
authorized by the poet himself. In the form by which 
it is now known the variations from the original are 
both numerous and important. These extend not only 
to details of versification and to the content of the 
piece but to the central idea underlying it. There are 
differences in expression as well as in conception. The 
poem, as it appears in 'Maud,' has thirteen stanzas; 
one of these — the sixth — is not found in the original. 
As it appeared in 'The Tribute,' it had sixteen, or 
really seventeen, for the last, though printed as one, 
consists strictly of two. In the stanzas which have 
been preserved in the modern form of the poem there 
is no small number of variations of language from that 
found in the form as it first came out. Beside the 
added stanza, there are verbal changes, all of which 
are distinct improvements. There are, furthermore, 
transposition of lines and transposition of verses. 
Much the most noticeable difference of all is the 
omission from 'Maud' of the four concluding stanzas 
of the poem as it appeared in ' The Tribute. ' 

Their omission was a necessity in consequence of 



274 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the variation in the central idea of the two pieces. 
Throughout there are of course resemblances in the 
conception. In both there is the same intention to 
portray poetically insanity in the form of mental 
hallucination which, as suggested in this piece, was 
later to be fully developed and clothed with beauty 
and power in 'Maud. ' In both appears in particular 
the ugly shadow, not of the lost bride but of the ghastly 
one like unto her, who stands by the lover's bedside 
at night, and haunts him during the day in crowded 
streets and the hubbub of market places. There it is, 
always stealing upon him whithersoever he goes, 
crossing here and crossing there through the noisy 
confusion of thronging streets, never leaving him in 
spite of his repeated imprecations to avoid his sight. 
These are the resemblances; but the differences are 
just as pronounced. In * Maud ' the taint of hereditary 
insanity in him who tells the tale is plainly indicated 
at the very outset, and the tendency is developed by 
circumstances that have already taken place or are 
speedily to take place. His father has perished in a 
manner which suggests suicide. By the hand of the 
hero in the course of the story, falls the brother of 
the woman he loves and has won. From the very 
beginning there is a tragic shadow of positive wrong 
and of doubtful death hanging over the leading char- 
acters and those akin to them; and an atmosphere of 
blood envelops both the wooer and his destined bride 
as events move on to their inevitable consummation in 
the grave which receives the body of the one and in 
the madness towards which the blot upon his brain 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 275 

is steadily driving the tortured spirit of the other. 
But in the original version there is no violence 
imputed or implied. In them mental hallucination has 
been brought on by sorrow alone for the bride who has 
been lost. 

The recovery too is in both cases different. In 
'Maud' the hero is brought back to sanity by the 
elevating influence of a righteous cause, by the aspira- 
tions of a great people waking up to a war in defence 
of the right. In the original, however, the hope for 
recovery is based entirely upon the recollections of 
the one he has lost, picturing her to himself sweet and 
lovely as he had known her in the days of her earthly 
life. It is indeed but a phantom of the mind which 
he recalls; but in this case it is a phantom fair and 
good, bringing peace and rest to the troubled soul and 
healing to the wounded heart; guarding his life from 
ill, displacing the dreary brow and dismal face of the 
ghastly sister phantom that had dogged his footsteps 
both in hours of solitude and in the midst of thronging 
crowds. It is to her, and to her alone, he turns for 
relief from this dull mechanic ghost, this juggle of the 
brain, born not of the conscious will, but of the invol- 
untary moving of the blood. Happily for him this 
dreary apparition cannot pass the limits of the grave ; 
and in the life beyond he will be welcomed by the 
original of the fair and kindly spirit, who clad in light 
waits to embrace him in the sky. The poem concludes 
with the following thirty-four lines, omitted in ' Maud, ' 
which in the original follow the twelfth stanza : 



276 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

But she tarries in her place, 
And I paint the beauteous face 
Of the maiden, that I lost. 
In my inner eyes again, 
Lest my heart be overborne 
By the thing I hold in scorn. 

By a dull mechanic ghost 
And a juggle of the brain. 

I can shadow forth my bride 
As I knew her fair and kind, 

As I woo 'd her for my wife ; 
She is lovely by my side 

In the silence of my life — 
'Tis a phantom of the mind. 

'Tis a phantom fair and good; 
I can call it to my side, 

So to guard my life from ill, 
Though its ghastly sister glide 

And be moved around me still 
With the moving of the blood, 

That is moved not of the will. 

Let it pass, the dreary brow, 

Let the dismal face go by. 
Will it lead me to the grave? 

Then I lose it ; it will fly : 
Can it overlast the nerves ? 

Can it overlive the eye? 
But the other, like a star, 
Thro' the channel windeth far, 

Till it fade and fail and die. 
To its Archetype that waits. 
Clad in light by golden gates — 
Clad in light the Spirit waits 

To embrace me in the sky. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 277 

This most exquisite of poetical productions, which 
was reprinted in 'The Annual Register' for 1837,^ 
attracted in a few cases the attention of persons 
outside of the circle of Tennyson's acquaintance. But 
so little was it generally appreciated at the time, so 
utterly was it lost to sight in the jungle of poetical 
weeds by which it was surrounded, that all memory 
of it speedily passed away from the minds of men. 
Save by the comparatively small number who pur- 
chased 'The Tribute,' it was hardly known at all. 
Even to many of these purchasers it was manifestly 
not known. So completely, in fact, had the very 
knowledge of its existence disappeared in a few years 
that Charles Astor Bristed, then pursuing his studies 
at Cambridge University, secured and transmitted a 
part of it to 'The Knickerbocker Magazine' in New 
York. In that it had for its title 'My Early Love.' 
Both Cambridge student and American editor were 
ignorant of its fragmentary character and of its 
previous appearance. Accordingly it was printed in 
the magazine as a hitherto unpublished poem. Bristed 
had informed the editor that these lines "he had been 
permitted to read in the manuscript of the author." 
If it were exactly transcribed and reproduced from 
its original, this copy besides being only a part of the 
poem presents distinct variations from the form of 
it which came out in 'The Tribute.' In that there 
were one hundred and ten lines; as it appeared in 
the magazine there were but sixty-six. Furthermore, 
there are distinct discrepancies between the two forms. 

1 Vol. LXXIX, p. 402. 



278 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

In the 'Knickerbocker,' stanzas were run together. 
The punctuation was largely different. The order of 
the lines was occasionally changed. Some of those 
found in ' The Tribute ' are omitted, and in one instance 
there is a line which appears in neither the earlier nor 
the later form. This condition of ignorance of its 
original appearance continued with the editor. In a 
particularly feeble review of 'Maud' which was pub- 
lished in the number of the magazine for November, 
1855,^ he reprinted the stanzas as found in that poem, 
taking care to preface them with the complacent 
remark that ''the very best thing in the volume is the 
following which will find thousands of new readers in 
these pages, although it was originally contributed to 
the Knickerbocker ten years ago." 

1 Vol. XLVI, p. 525. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE POEMS OF 1832 

In the early part of the year 1831, Tennyson was 
summoned home by the illness of his father. He left 
the university apparently with little regret for the 
education he was losing but probably with some 
regret for the degree. In a letter to one of his friends, 
dated February 26 of this same year, Merivale spoke 
of Charles Tennyson as having put off till the next 
term his graduation, upon which, according to his 
own statement, all his property depended. ''Alfred," 
Merivale continued, ''is trying to make his eyes bad 
enough to require an aegrotat degree."^ This was 
pretty surely spoken in jest; for there is no question 
that the condition of these organs, more indispensable 
to him than even to most men, then disturbed Tennyson 
very much. We are told indeed that for a time he 
feared that he might lose his sight altogether. Much 
later in life the motes floating before his eyes con- 
tinued to fill him with apprehension. In 1847 he wrote 
to his aunt suifering from the same affliction that these 
distressed him a great deal. "Mine increase weekly," 
he said, "in fact, I almost look forward with certainty 

1 ' Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale,' Oxford, 1898, 
p. 151. 



280 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to being blind some of these days, ' '^ Still if Merivale 's 
remark were spoken in earnest, it is enough to say 
here that Tennyson never succeeded in making suffi- 
cient impression of his disability upon the authorities 
to induce them to confer upon him his degree except 
upon condition of passing the prescribed examinations. 
Accordingly he left the university without one. 

It was but a short time after his return to his home 
that his father died. On Wednesday, March 16, after 
about a month's illness, the Reverend George Clayton 
Tennyson passed away peacefully from what had been 
to him a troubled and somewhat bitter life. Fortu- 
nately for his family, the new incumbent had no desire 
to live at the rectory. In consequence its occupants 
were permitted to retain it as their residence. There 
they continued to dwell until 1837. There Tennyson 
had his regular home, varied indeed by frequent 
temporary absences. Though he had abandoned his 
academic course of study, none the less was he deter- 
mined to devote himself to a purely literary career. 
To this resolution he adhered through good report 
and ill report. The consciousness of his destiny was 
upon him. There was one life for him to lead and but 
one. He recognized fully then what Wordsworth was 
to say later, that ^'poetry is no pastime, but a serious 
earnest work, demanding unspeakable study. ' ' Though 
possessed in those early days of a small income, he 
was, strictly speaking, a poor man. *' Alfred," wrote 
Hallam to Leigh Hunt in November, 1832, ''has 
resisted all attempts to force him into a profession, 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 243. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 281 

preferring poetry and an honourable poverty." As 
it turned out, the pursuit of the one freed him at last 
from the pressure of the other. This however could 
not have been foreseen or even anticipated at the 
outset. It was indeed no easy road he was compelled 
to travel at first. As things turned out, it was prob- 
ably far harder than he himself had expected ; but from 
the faith which led him to embrace it, he never once 
swerved. 

While at the university, after the publication of the 
volume of 1830, he was still engaged in the production 
of new poems. Trench speaks of meeting him there 
and of hearing him repeat pieces as yet unpublished. 
''I saw him," he wrote to a friend, ''for a few hours 
at Cambridge, and heard recited some of his poems, 
which were at least as remarkable as any in his book. ' '^ 
Naturally in the leisure and seclusion of country life 
this practice of composition would be continued. In 
the early part of 1832, Arthur Ilallam visited him at 
Somersby. He had himself just attained his majority, 
and was rejoicing in his new position of acknowledged 
lover and accepted suitor of Emily Tennyson. It was 
while there at this time that according to his own 
account the now officially recognized wooer of the 
sister succeeded in persuading the brother to bring out 
a new book of poems. 

Even before this time the project had been under 
consideration. Limited as he was in his means, 
Tennyson, like all other authors, turned to the pub- 

1 ' Letters and Memorials of Archbishop Trench, ' Vol. I, p. 91 ; letter 
of May 29, 1831. 



282 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

lishers. Moxon had wished him to contribute to the 
magazine — the 'Englishman's' — which he had just 
taken over from its projectors. Tennyson, in conse- 
quence, had, as we have seen, sent him one poem. To 
Merivale, then in London, Hallam wrote in his friend's 
behalf from Hastings in August, 1831. He wished him 
to interview Moxon and ascertain what he would pay 
the poet for regular contributions. A further inquiry 
was made if he would give anything for the copyright 
and if so what, provided Tennyson were to get together 
material enough to fill a second volume. The ticklish 
state in which the magazine soon showed itself to be 
doubtless led the publisher to fight shy of arranging 
to secure articles for it — at least if he had to pay for 
them. Prom the result, however, it is manifest that 
Moxon either then or later agreed to bring out 
Tennyson 's new work. In a letter to Trench of March 
30, 1832, Hallam announced the probability of its 
appearance that year. Incidentally he gave also his 
own impression of the man. 

''Alfred," wrote Hallam, "I was glad to find better 
than I had apprehended. I see no ground for thinking 
that he has anything serious to ail him. His mind is 
what it always was, or rather brighter, and more 
vigorous. I regret, with you, that you have never had 
the opportunity of knowing more of him. His nervous 
temperament and habits of solitude give an appearance 
of affectation to his manner, which is no true inter- 
preter of the man, and wears off on further knowledge. 
Perhaps you could never become very intimate, for 
certainly your bents of mind are not the same, and 



THE POEMS OF 1832 283 

at some points they intersect; yet I think you could 
hardly fail to see much for love, as well as for admira- 
tion. I have persuaded him, I think, to publish 
without further delay. There is written the amount 
of a volume rather larger than the former, and 
certainly, unless the usual illusion of manuscript 
deceives me, more free from blemishes and more 
masterly in power. ' '^ 

Accordingly during the middle of the year 1832 this 
new volume was going through the press. In the 
month of November, Hallam announced its speedy 
appearance to Leigh Hunt. In the communication, he 
gave further his own opinion as to its character. 
''I hope soon," he wrote, **to have the pleasure of 
presenting you a second collection of poems by my 
friend Alfred Tennyson, much superior in my judg- 
ment to the first, although I thought, as you know, 
highly of those. "^ The same opinion was expressed 
in more extravagant terms by other friends of the 
author. ^ ' Alfred Tennyson, ' ' wrote Kemble to Trench, 
''is about to give the world a volume of stupendous 
poems, the lowest toned of which is strung higher than 
the highest of his former volumes." The work 
appeared in the first week of December, 1832. On 
the title-page it bore, however, the date of 1833. In 
consequence it is frequently designated as belonging 
to that year. The collection consisted of thirty poems 
and covered one hundred and sixty-three pages. 

1 E. C. Trench's 'Letters and Memorials,' Vol. I, p. 111. 

2 J. Nichols 's ' Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, ' Vol. 
I, p. 27; letter dated November 13, 1832. 



284 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

No one who compares the contents of this second 
venture with those of the first can fail to perceive 
how great had been the growth of Tennyson in power 
and felicity of execution during the more than two 
years which had elapsed between the publication of 
the two volumes. Time, the severest, but also the 
justest critic of all, has settled this point in a way 
that cannot be gainsaid. Few of the pieces that 
appeared in 1830 are now much read or quoted. Many 
of them are referred to as indicating the rise of a new 
and original poetic genius; some only of the number 
are cited as exhibitions of that genius risen and fully 
developed. The Lilians, the Claribels, the Isabels, 
with which Christopher North declared himself in 
love, rarely inspire feelings of that nature now, and 
with but occasional exceptions no very profound 
sentiments of admiration. Curiosity is much more 
the emotion they arouse. The contents of the volume 
of 1832 were, indeed, distinctly surpassed by many 
of his later productions. Nevertheless, it contains a 
number of pieces that have held their own during the 
countless changes of taste that have gone on during 
the more than four fifths of a century which have 
elapsed since their publication. In that volume are 
to be found, in particular, ' The Lady of Shalott, ' ' The 
Miller's Daughter,' 'The May Queen,' 'The Lotos- 
Eaters,' 'CEnone,' 'The Palace of Art,' and 'The 
Dream of Fair Women. ' Some of these poems under- 
went more or less of alteration in the edition of 1842, 
two or three of them somewhat extensive alteration. 
But in their original form they were all there. They 



THE POEMS OF 1832 285 

were worthy then of the honor in which they have 
since been steadily held. The most skeptical of men, 
in contemplating these pieces as the production of a 
man less than twenty-three years old at the time of 
their publication, and in many instances much younger 
at the time of their composition, could not have 
failed to recognize the fact that a great poetic genius 
had arisen. To do otherwise required unusual lack 
of critical discernment or unusual abundance of 
prejudice. 

But as not unfrequently happens, lack of perspi- 
cacity was prevalent and abundance of prejudice 
blinded. A decided change had come over the opinion 
of the critical world. For the chorus of praise which 
had welcomed the first work was now substituted a 
cold dispassionate approval in the most favorable 
instances; in others a snarl and a bark. The volume 
of 1832 not only surpassed its predecessor, but it 
contained a good deal which the world has come to 
reckon among its treasures. But such was not the 
sentiment of the time. Scarcely anywhere — it would 
be nearly true to say nowhere — was there any display 
of enthusiasm by the professional reviewers. By 
certain of the most influential among them it was 
spoken of depreciatingly. By some it was not even 
noticed at all. Prevalent too in the most favorable 
notices was that calm and languid approval which is 
more disheartening to an author than the most fero- 
cious criticism; for this last shows that he has made 
some impression, even if it be an adverse one. But 
one point of view was almost universal. There was 



286 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

a general agreement among the critics that the second 
venture was inferior to the first. 

In spite of a few pieces contained in it, which it 
would have been well never to have included, the 
superiority of the second volume to the first is now 
so manifest that it seems almost incredible that it 
should have escaped then the notice of even the 
stupidest of critics. Yet no one can make a study 
of contemporary opinion, as manifested in the reviews 
of the period, without becoming aware that its infe- 
riority to its predecessor was generally taken for 
granted. All men would now be indignant at being 
accused of entertaining such a view. It was naturally 
not held by the members of the immediate circle 
surrounding Tennyson. Nor was it held by those 
outside who had made themselves really familiar with 
the poet's writings. Yet this preposterous critical 
estimate, utterly discreditable to human taste and 
intelligence, speedily became the prevailing conven- 
tional criticism. It was echoed and re-echoed during 
the ten years which preceded the publication of the 
poems of 1842. It was repeated not alone by men 
who lacked sense enough to know any better, but it 
occasionally came from the lips of some who were 
presumed to possess judgment. Nor did it entirely 
cease when Tennyson broke at last his ten years of 
silence and in a short time placed himself at the head 
of contemporary poets. It is almost a natural infer- 
ence from some of the remarks of Christopher North, 
in his subsequent attacks upon Tennyson, that he held 
this belief. Still if so, he never stated it in direct 



THE POEMS OF 1832 287 

terms. Far different was it with the wordy and windy 
Gilfillan, who as late as 1847 expressed such an opinion 
in an article on Tennyson's writings. This critic had 
not at that time succeeded in making up his mind 
whether Tennyson was a great poet or not. He 
informed us however that ''his second production was 
less successful, and deserved to be less successful, than 
the first. It was stuffed with wilful impertinencies 
and affectations." It is uncertain whether this utter- 
ance of the writer was due to his particular ignorance 
of the two volumes or to his general incompetence 
of appreciation. Possibly both were united. At all 
events it is a proof of the remarkable vitality fre- 
quently inherent in silly criticism that any one at that 
late day could be found foolish enough to revive this 
then long-exploded nonsense. 

A contemporary article there was, the only one of 
the early notices of the work so far as I can discover, 
which not merely spoke of the new volume in the 
highest terms, but in this particular took the modern 
view. It proclaimed that a distinct advance had been 
made in this second venture over the first. Yet even 
in that it was intimated that, superior as was the later 
collection, it was not so much superior as it ought to 
have been, taking into consideration the fact that 
more than two years had elapsed since the earlier 
collection had been published. With that modification, 
however, the praise was cordial, and indeed might be 
called enthusiastic. The article here referred to came 
out in 'The Monthly Eepository,' the organ of the 
Unitarian body. The editor of the periodical, and 



288 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

unquestionably the writer of the criticism, was the 
noted pulpit orator and social reformer, William 
Johnson Fox, whom Browning was wont to style his 
literary father. His article appeared in the number 
for January, 1833. As apparently the only cordial 
and thoroughgoing praise the work received at the 
time in any review of the slightest pretension what- 
ever, it deserves a certain amount of consideration for 
that very reason. It deserves this further because it 
is the only criticism of that period whose general 
conclusions have received the sanction of later times. 
Fox tells us in this article that it was in the autumn 
of 1830 that he had first read any of Tennyson's 
poetry. He was then seeking a temporary rest from 
the stormy political strife in which he had been 
engaged. It was a time of tumult and confusion. 
In France the red flower of revolution had once more 
burst into triumphant bloom. In England the spirit 
of reform had come into conflict with the reactionary 
conservative spirit headed by the great English 
captain of the age. The battle was still going on. 
From these feverish and tumultuous scenes the writer 
of the review informs us that he had escaped for a 
while into the country. With him he carried a little 
book, which according to his account no flourish of 
newspaper trumpets had announced, and in whose 
train no newspapers had waved their banners. What 
he read, however, made him feel that a new poet had 
arisen in the land. This little book was the Tennyson 
volume of 1830. ''It was," he said, ''the poetry of 
truth and nature and philosophy; above all, it was 



THE POEMS OF 1832 289 

that of a young man, who, if true to himself and his 
vocation, might charm the sense and soul of humanity 
and make the unhewm blocks in this our wilderness 
of society move into temples and palaces." The rest 
of the article was in accord with this opening. He 
praised with little restraint the volume which had 
followed the first. He even found the songs to 'The 
Owl' in the earlier work "amusing specimens of 
humor." As amusing examples of this same humor 
in the latter, he mentioned the lines to Christopher 
North. Vagaries such as these may be pardoned; 
for in general the remarks of the critic were just and 
discriminating. It may be worth while to specify that, 
while commending and quoting other pieces, Fox 
declared that 'Hhe best combined play of the author's 
powers, reflection and imagination, description and 
melody is in the 'Legend of the Lady of Shalott' " 

But this single distinctly favorable notice came out 
in a periodical of limited circulation and necessarily 
of comparatively limited influence. Its attitude was 
far from being that of the general critical body. 
Lukewarm praise there was of certain pieces ; positive 
condemnation of others. It is just to say that to some 
extent Tennyson was himself responsible for the 
treatment his work received. The opening pages of 
his new volume, to which the reader's eyes would 
ordinarily be first directed, were largely taken up with 
sonnets. These belong to a species of verse in which 
the poet never attained distinguished excellence. But, 
in particular, the book contained towards its end two 
little pieces which were to have a marked influence 



290 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

upon the estimation in which its author was for a long 
time held. One of these pieces never reprinted by 
him in later editions of his works was headed '0 
Darling K-oom.' This was to become speedily and to 
remain long the object of constant derisive attack. 
It rejoiced his enemies, it grieved even his warmest 
friends. 

One illustration of the feelings of the latter will 
suffice. Fanny Kemble, then in America, did not have 
an opportunity to read the second collection of poems 
till the summer of 1833. She was entirely ignorant 
of what had been said and written about them in 
England. While expressing the highest admiration of 
most of the pieces contained in the new volume, she did 
not conceal her disapproval of one or two, but espe- 
cially of the particular one just mentioned. She hated, 
she tells us, the little room with two white sofas. She 
could easily fancy both the room and the feeling. 
Still, she recognized clearly that such was not the sort 
of sentiment out of which good poetry was constituted. 
It ''lends itself temptingly," she observed, "to the 
making of good burlesque.'" At the time of her 
writing, these verses had already been not so much 
burlesqued as derided. Such we shall discover they 
continued to be many years after the poet had dropped 
them from later editions of his works. 

But the one piece which had the most damaging 
effect upon Tennyson's immediate fortunes was that 
addressed to Christopher North. While the second 
collection was going through the press, Wilson's 

1 Letter of August 17, 1833, in 'Records of a Girlhood.' 



THE POEMS OF 1832 291 

criticism of the first, already described, made its 
appearance in 'Blackwood's Magazine.' Though the 
praise was really more lavish than the blame, Tenny- 
son, with that extraordinary sensitiveness to criticism 
which was a distinguishing weakness of his nature, 
resented the article deeply. What was supremely 
foolish, he resented it openly. Nothing could have 
been more impolitic, especially for a young and little- 
known author. Even at that early age Tennyson ought 
to have been aware that however much professional 
critics may hate each other, they are fairly sure to 
band together in the defence of any one of their 
number attacked from the outside. Hallam, whose 
affection for his friend had led him to speak of the 
* Darling Eoom' as *' mighty pleasant," felt and 
expressed anxiety about the lines to Christopher 
North, though he himself had been attacked more 
severely by that reviewer than the poet himself had 
been. The epigram in his opinion was good. He 
added, however, ''I have scruples whether you should 
publish it. Perhaps he may like the lines and you the 
better for them ; but ' ' — and here he used a Greek word 
to express his apprehension.^ He would have been 
much more pronounced in his dissuasion had he known 
that the sensitiveness to criticism of the critic rivalled 
if it did not even surpass that of the poet. 

Tennyson was not influenced by the hesitation of his 
friend. He paid no heed to the doubt expressed as to 
the expediency of publishing the epigram. Accord- 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 88. 



292 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ingly when the volume appeared it contained the 
following lines addressed to Christopher North: 

You did late review my lays, 

Crusty Christopher; 
You did mingle blame and praise, 

Rusty Christopher. 
When I learnt from whom it came, 
I forgave you all the blame. 

Musty Christopher; 
I could not forgive the praise, 

Fusty Christopher. 

It is speaking too well of the cheap sarcasm expressed 
in these verses to call them puerile. Under the circum- 
stances they better deserve the title of babyish. They 
are hardly worthy of an angry schoolboy. But the 
lines brought with them their own punishment, without 
speaking of that which came from outside sources. 
They constituted the one poem which would be sure 
to arrest the attention of the most careless reader. 
From it he would be apt to form his estimate of the 
man. 

Tennyson himself came speedily to be ashamed of 
this foolish outburst. Apparently also after he had 
run the gauntlet of a good deal of hostile criticism, he 
feared that he might be made the subject of a further 
attack from the then all-powerful reviewer. In 
February, 1834, was brought out a poem entitled 
* Criticism and Taste, a Satire. ' It was the work of a 
certain John Lake, who was apparently by birth a 
Scotchman, certainly by occupation a tailor, and who 
further was a writer that perpetrated several poems 



THE POEMS OF 1832 293 

and plays hardly heard of at the time and now abso- 
lutely forgotten. He had met with a good deal of ill 
success in putting his literary wares upon the market. 
He had no special spite against Wilson. Furthermore, 
according to his own confession, he knew nothing what- 
ever of Tennyson, and had never read any of his 
poems. Nevertheless he took it upon him to come to 
his defence against his critic. He versified a number 
of the characterizations which Wilson had made of 
particular pieces of Tennyson, especially those which 
had been stigmatized by a number of derogatory 
epithets. He then ended with the words of encourage- 
ment given by the critic to the poet : 

And yet, ' ' of us if he will take advice, ' ' 
* ' Us, ' ' in whose hands all power and talent lies, 
' ' The day may come, " " with our assistance, ' ' he 
' ' May grow expanding to a stately tree ; ' ' 
But if he pride or disobedience "shews. 
Assuredly he to oblivion goes. ' ' 

Lake forwarded this poem to Tennyson with the 
implied if not openly expressed intimation that he 
ought to promote the circulation of the satire which 
had been written in his defence. This was far from 
being the wish or intention of the poet. He seems 
indeed to have feared that the appearance of this little 
work would furnish a pretext for the infliction of a 
further castigation of himself in 'Blackwood's Maga- 
zine, ' in addition to that which he had already received 
from the most influential critical organs of the day. 
At any rate, he was led to write Wilson a letter in 



294 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which he defended himself from the suspicion of 
having any sympathy with the spirit or matter of 
Lake's satire. Further, he apologized for the ''silly 
squib" which he had written upon his re^dewer. He 
remarked also that he could wish that some of the 
poems which had been broken on the critical wheel 
in 'Blackwood's Magazine' were deeper than ever 
plummet sounded, and that he had no desire to see 
them or hear them again/ There is perceptible indeed 
throughout this whole letter a dread of further attack 
from Christopher North. No reply seems ever to have 
been made to it. From later developments it will be 
found that it failed entirely to placate the angry 
reviewer. 

There was indeed little to be hoped for from the 
general verdict of critical opinion when the only really 
favorable notice of his new volume came from a 
periodical of distinct ability indeed but of limited 
circulation ; and when the only man who came forward 
earnestly to the support of the poet was a London 
tailor who had never read the writings of the author 
he had undertaken to champion. On the other hand, 
there were plenty to assail. One of the first to fall 
foul of him was ' The Literary Gazette. ' The existence 
of that periodical is but little known now. Even then 
it was at the beginning of its downward career; but 
as has previously been pointed out, it still continued 
to be a power; it was still generally reckoned the 
leading critical weekly. Its editor, William Jerdan, 
had been concerned during his career in various 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, pp. 95-96. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 295 

literary enterprises ; but the main business of his life 
had been for some time the conduct of this periodical. 
In general terms he may be characterized as ordi- 
narily a good-hearted but invariably fat-witted man. 
It shows the benefit of anonymousness, but is of itself 
the most damaging comment that can be made upon 
the business of reviewing, that such a literary judge 
should have been for years at the head of the most 
important critical weekly of the time. Jordan's lack 
of mental qualifications was, however, more than made 
up by the abundance of his moral ones. In the manage- 
ment of 'The Literary Gazette' he was animated by 
the loftiest motives. This fact we know for a certainty, 
for he has told us so himself. In the account he 
furnished of his life he gave a fairly affecting por- 
trayal of the unremitting and occasionally herculean 
efforts he put forth to discharge worthily his duties 
as a critic, so as to do equal and exact justice to all. 
He labored assiduously, to use his own words, '*to 
cherish talent and to proclaim genius — to commingle 
the lesson of truth with the incitement to praise — to 
foster the aspirations of the young and pay the tribute 
due to older votaries in the path of authorship." It 
is not very surprising that any one animated by 
motives so exalted should in a world of imperfect 
creatures occasionally meet the fate of all pure-minded 
souls in having his efforts derided. 

It has already been mentioned that Jordan had been 
made the subject of a violent and rather coarse attack 
by Southey for the review he had written in 1830 of 
the volume by Charles Lamb entitled * Album Verses.' 



296 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

This was the first work which had come from the press 
of the young publisher, Moxon. For two years Jerdan 
brooded in silence over the onslaught made upon him 
by the poet laureate. Then he seized the occasion of 
another book issuing from the same house to relieve 
his feelings. This chanced to be Tennyson's second 
volume. The work had hardly come out when he 
proceeded to review it, or rather he used it largely 
to reply to the attack made upon him by Southey for 
his previous criticism of Lamb's verses. What 
possible connection he could find between the writings 
of the two men beyond the fact that they had the same 
publisher he does not tell us. What possible pretext 
there could be for putting their poetry in the same 
class was a puzzle too intricate to be solved by the 
reader of to-day. It certainly required unusual obtuse- 
ness of literary perception to discover the slightest 
similarity. Still in this particular qualification, 
Jerdan abounded. He could furthermore plead in 
his justification the example of Lockhart who had 
found Keats to be a disciple of Leigh Hunt. 

But Jerdan on his own behalf was fully equal to this 
piece of imbecility. For pure unmitigated idiocy there 
are times when criticism surpasses the most sanguine 
expectations. This was one of them. Jerdan 's review 
of Tennyson's new volume took up seven columns of 
'The Literary Gazette.'^ Of his article about a third 
had not the remotest connection with the work osten- 
sibly under review. It was given up to a consideration 
of the grievances of the editor in connection with his 

1 No. for December 8, 1832. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 297 

previous criticism of Lamb's 'Album Verses,' in which 
he had questioned the infinite beauty and excellence 
of this pretty slip-slop, as he now termed it. For so 
doing he had aroused against himself, he declared, the 
rage of all the members of the school to which that 
author belonged. These had hastened to pour out their 
impotence upon 'The Literary Gazette.' They not 
merely bespattered the paper from their little period- 
ical vehicles, whence they could open their tiny 
batteries, but they actually procured Southey, as an 
old friend of Lamb's, to thunder some verses in the 
'Times' at the reviewer. What earthly relationship 
this preliminary exhibition of wrath had to the work 
nominally under consideration was not apparent on 
the surface ; but Jerdan was able to supply the missing 
link which formed the connection. He created a new 
school of poetry to which Lamb and Tennyson were 
both represented as belonging. This with great 
severity he called the Baa-Lamb School. In the 
following urbane way his notice of the work under 
review began: 

"Mr. Alfred Tennyson," he wrote, "may be consid- 
ered a pupil of a poetical school, to offer a fair and 
candid opinion of the merits and demerits of any one 
of whom, from the Dux of the highest to the Dunce 
of the lowest form, is sure to bring the whole about 
your ears, buzzing, hallooing, yelping, abusing, and 
pelting with all the fury of an incensed urchinry." 
This opening sentence indicated the general nature 
of the criticism which followed. Jerdan said that 
Tennyson had previously published a volume which 



298 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

he remembered only to have seen through friendly 
reviews which hailed him as the most gifted bard of 
the time. *'We thought," he continued, ^*the speci- 
mens did not support the judgment; but the writer 
was young and enthusiastic, evidently warm in the 
pursuit ; and we have seen many worse debutants make 
verj^ distinguished figures in their riper years. We 
therefore said nothing to daunt his ardor." This 
kindly attitude he felt that he could no longer main- 
tain. Further mercy was out of place. In the volume 
under review this stern judge found something to 
admire and something to censure. As is usual in such 
cases the censure was out of all proportion to the 
admiration. It naturally exceeded it as much in 
intensity as it did in length. He damned with a sort 
of faint praise a number of pieces which were the least 
worthy of commendation. He specified as particularly 
deserving of censure the pedantry characterizing many 
pieces, or, as he expressed it, "the sad disorders of 
the imagination exhibited in allegories and classical 
paraphrases." 'The Lady of Shalott' was in his 
opinion a strange ballad without a perceptible object. 
At the end he quoted a passage from the beginning 
^ of 'CEnone,' which he spoke of as ''the sheer insanity 
I of versification." Low diet and sound advice, he 
thought, might eventually restore the patient. But in 
the meantime the critic felt it to be his duty to commit 
\ him to what his publication does not deserve to have — 
^ a madhouse cell. As the creation of the Baa-Lamb 
School had been a silly imitation of Jeffrey's Lake 
School and of 'Blackwood's' Cockney School, so his 



THE POEMS OF 1832 299 

advice to Tennyson to retire to an insane asylum was 
a still sillier imitation of Lockhart's previous advice 
to Keats to go back to his gallipots. 

This was the severest criticism of the volume which 
appeared in any of the weekly and monthly periodicals 
of the time. But the inadequacy of the others was as 
manifest as the forcible feebleness of 'The Literary 
Gazette.' Most of the criticisms which the work 
received were of that perfunctory character which is 
sometimes as damaging in its effects as the most 
furious attack, and not unfrequently more so. They 
were all marked by the same wearisome repetition of 
the charges of obscurity and affectation and of the 
reprehensible use of obsolete words. For years criti- 
cism went on reproducing these particular accusations. 
They constituted the burden of the regularly recurring 
commonplaces of the stock censures that were dragged 
to the front during the whole period which elapsed 
between the volume of 1832 and the edition of 1842. 
Even after the appearance of the latter they were still 
made to do duty for a long while in certain quarters. 

The charge of affectation in particular had to some 
extent waited upon the volume of 1830. But upon its 
successor special stress was laid for its exhibition of 
this failing by about all of the new weekly periodicals 
which were struggling into prominence. The parrot- 
like repetition of this same senseless criticism becomes 
at last wearying almost up to the point of nausea. 
Though the estimate of the work given by these new 
periodicals was in general more favorable than that 
of the oldest and most influential of their number, in 



300 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

no case could it be termed cordial. 'The Atlas,' for 
instance, had welcomed the volume of 1830 with some 
warmth, though with little critical discernment. It 
had advanced of course the authorized remarks about 
the poet's affectation and his disposition to allow his 
thought to run riot in search of obsolete modes of 
utterance. Still it was gracious enough to admit that 
on the whole it was greatly pleased with Mr. Alfred 
Tennyson.^ When, however, it came to the consid- 
eration of the poems of 1832, it was clearly not so much 
pleased. It proclaimed that it had been the first to 
introduce the previous volume to the public. It is 
proper to add that it now bestowed upon the second 
one a fair share of commendation. It gave the poet 
credit for genius. It quoted in part or in whole 'The 
Miller's Daughter,' 'Rosalind,' and 'The Death of the 
Old Year. ' But a good deal of its notice was taken up 
with that particular sort of censure which was to rage 
unchecked for the next half-score years and even 
longer. Tennyson was declared to belong to a school 
that ran a constant risk of spoiling all its excellence 
by the varnish of affectation. Fault was specifically 
found with his taste for coining words that had a 
picturesque look upon paper, but really hurt the force 
of his meaning by distracting the attention from that 
to the garb in which it was clothed. A still greater 
fault found with him was his refining his metaphysics 
so extravagantly that while the poet believed that he 
was working in the subtle depths of passion, he was 
really wasting himself upon air. No illustrations were 

1 Vol. V, p. 411, June 27, 1830. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 301 

given of this fault. To determine what the critic meant 
must accordingly be left to the reader ; for the reviewer 
had so refined his own metaphysics that he was himself 
incomprehensible/ 

Not essentially different was the view taken by * The 
Athenaeum.' This periodical had now passed into 
other hands than those of the Apostolic band which 
had been concerned in its early management. Never- 
theless it gave the volume what was on the whole a 
somewhat favorable though far from enthusiastic 
notice. It quoted with high praise a large proportion 
of 'The Miller's Daughter,' the whole of the 'New 
Year's Eve,' 'The Death of the Old Year,' and a part 
of ' (Enone. ' But it devoted also a good deal of space 
to a denunciation of the poet's faults or assumed 
faults. Necessarily the ever recurring charge of 
affectation was prominent. "He takes," said the 
critic, "an unaccountable delight to the verge (nay, 
till he is often lost to us within the precincts) of unin- 
telligibility. " "Either what is antiquated," he con- 
tinued, "or that which is palpable innovation (be it 
in thought, or expression, or orthography,) possesses 
an irresistible charm for him; and accordingly his 
poetry is marred, and its beauty disfigured and some- 
times absolutely concealed, not only by discarded 
phrase and obsolete pronunciation, but by words newly 
compounded after the German model." Censure of 
some pieces was accordingly mingled with the praise 
given to others. "The poem of 'The Hesperides,' " 
the critic concluded by saying, "we confess, is beyond 

1 Vol. VII, p. 842, December 16, 1832. 



302 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

us, and we will at once hand it over to Christopher 
North. Neither do we greatly care if he take charge 
of the allegorical poem, * The Palace of Art. ' ' '^ 

The two notices just considered were on the whole 
the most favorable ones which the volume received 
from the weeklies. Neither, as we have seen, was 
characterized by any display of enthusiasm. Even 
less so were some of the others. In the friendliest 
comments, if any can be called friendly, the note of 
critical depreciation is apparent. By several of the 
periodicals the work was ignored altogether. But the 
most striking and what to modern times will seem the 
most singular attitude taken towards the new work 
is its already mentioned assumed inferiority to its 
predecessor. Nor was this view confined entirely to 
literary critics. Hallam wrote to his friend that 
Rogers defended him publicly as the most promising 
genius of the time ; but he added that the veteran poet 
thought the first volume was decidedly superior to the 
second. He expressed his surprise at such a view 
coming from such a quarter. Naturally he said that 
he could not comprehend it." Yet in it Rogers appar- 
ently reflected a very widely entertained, if not the 
generally received opinion. Outside of the circle of 
his personal friends there is scarcely to be found at 
the immediate time any real recognition of the advance 
which had been made by the poet. In fact, the 
ordinary critical attitude taken on this point may be 
exemplified by the review in *The Spectator.' This 

1 December 1, 1832, 

2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p, 92. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 303 

periodical had given a good deal of praise to the 
earlier volume.^ Of course the usual attacks had been 
made upon his fondness for old words, his love for 
old modes of pronunciation, and furthermore upon the 
vicious and irregular system exhibited in the arrange- 
ment of his rhymes. But when it came to review the 
second venture, there was an entire alteration in its 
tone. ''It does not appear to us," it said, "from a 
very attentive perusal of the volume that Mr. Tenny- 
son has either consulted his fame by its publication or 
at all approached the beauties of his first publication." 
There are critics whose attentive perusal of a work 
has a more disastrous effect upon their judgment than 
a careless one. This is a case in point. The volume, 
it declared, seemed to be but an echo of the previous 
work, and that a faint one. It quoted 'Eleanore' as 
being the poem apparently most on an equality with 
those found in the former work. ''The author," it 
concluded, "seems to have been studying some new 
model. He has grown far more shadowy and obscure ; 
and in his attempts to seize upon beauty and power 
not of earth, he has, like Ixion, embraced a cloud. "^ 

Essentially the same view is expressed in the brief 
notice of the work which appeared in 'Tait's Edin- 
burgh Magazine' for January, 1833.^ "Mr. Tenny- 
son's new volume," it said, "contains many good and 
a few beautiful poems ; but it scarcely comes up to our 
high-raised expectations of the author of Poems 
chiefly Lyrical. We must return to it more at leisure. ' ' 

1 August 21, 1830. 

2 December 15, 1832. 

3 Vol. II, p. 540. 



304 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Naturally the leisure was never found to return to it 
at all. A change of attitude had also come over 'The 
New Monthly Magazine.' In the review of the first 
volume the likeness of Tennyson to Keats had been 
distinctly pointed out by one of the few who were 
then admirers of the latter poet. That fact which had 
recommended it to the earlier critic had the opposite 
effect upon the later. The editorship of the magazine 
had now passed into the hands of Bulwer. It may or 
may not be that the review of the volume of 1832 
which appeared in it was the work of that author; 
but as it reflected his sentiments there is every reason 
to believe that it was. At all events Tennyson many 
years after asserted it to have come from his pen.^ 

Bulwer was an admirer of the old school of poetry 
whose sway was now threatened with subversion. His 
review, like the preceding one in the same magazine, 
detected, while in this case it disapproved, the 
presence of the new spirit which was manifested in 
the verse under consideration. He held that Keats 
and Shelley were abominable models. Their genius 
scarcely redeemed their faults. It was more than 
doubtful, he asserted, if the former would ever rank 
with posterity among the classic names of the age. 
As a representative of this new school, Tennyson fell 
accordingly under the castigation of the critic. He 
was censured for his imitation of these writers whose 
originality was of the kind to be avoided. ''There is 
a metaphysical poem in the volume," he said, "called 
' The Palace of Art ' ; — ^we shall only say of this edifice, 

iR. Garnett's 'Life of William Johnson Fox,' 1910, p. 284. 



THE POEMS OF 1832 305 

that Shelley found all the materials; — *A Dream of 
Fair Women,' — a most conceited title, has also a 
strong Shelleyan savour. Other poems, called 'The 
Hesperides' and 'OEnone' again are of the best Cock- 
ney classic; and Keatesian to the marrow." 

Of course Bulwer — or whoever was the reviewer — 
censured Tennyson for affectation. No critic of that 
time would have felt that he could go to bed happy if 
he had not resorted to that convenient word as a 
method of disguising the fact that he did not know 
what he was talking about. He quoted also the '0 
Darling Room' and the lines to Christopher North. 
''The severity of the last poem," was his comment, "is ") 
really scalding; an infant of two years old could not ] 
be more biting." With all this, the criticism, though 
it cannot be called favorable, was not actually un- 
friendly. In a way Bulwer was then a half-hearted 
admirer of Tennyson. He exhibited in this review an 
altogether different attitude from that which later, 
unfortunately for himself, he was to assume. The 
hard language he had employed about the author was 
due, he declared at the conclusion, to the fact that he 
had more hopes of him than of most of his contem- 
poraries. In their case he saw Folly sitting compla- 
cently in its fetters. But in Tennyson, who seemed 
to him in many respects the incarnation of modern 
poetry, it was genius struggling to escape. As a proof 
of this he quoted approvingly some of the pieces.^ 

More than enough has been furnished of the sort of 
hostile critical comment to which Tennyson's work 

1 Vol. XXXVII, pp. 69-74, January, 1833. 



306 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was subjected during this early period of his career. 
There was nothing exceptional about the time itself 
so far as the estimate taken of his writings was con- 
cerned. It extended more or less to the day of his 
death. Still no student of the poet's literary life can 
fail to be struck not only with his own fairly ridiculous 
sensitiveness to criticism, even to that which was but 
slightly unfavorable, but to the fact that he had at the 
outset to encounter so much that was unfavorable and 
often hostile. Tennyson, before he had reached middle 
age, had won his way to the foremost place among 
living English poets. He lived a great many years 
longer; but the commanding position he had then 
acquired, though often threatened, was never lost. 
Yet no man ever owed less than he to the aid of favor- 
able criticism. Any complete record of his literary 
career will show conclusively that in the vast majority 
of instances, the reviewing fraternity followed, and 
often followed grumblingly, the popular taste instead 
of preceding and guiding it. Once and once only on 
the occasion of the publication of his first volume, his 
friends made an effort to forestall the judgment of 
the public. The sole result achieved was to retard 
his recognition and not to advance it. If it did not 
actually provoke, it gave increased virulence to the 
critical storm which burst out with violence. But 
there was in this experience nothing exceptional. 
When we come to consider the reception given to most 
of the several volumes he from time to time put forth, 
we find that on the appearance of each the professional 
critical estimate was rarely enthusiastic. In fact it 



THE POEMS OF 1832 307 

was usually more or less depreciatory, when not 
actually hostile. The exceptions to this state of things 
are merely sufficient in number to make more notice- 
able the rule. 

It may be well to observe at this point that when 
the volume of 1832 was on the point of appearing, 
Tennyson decided to suppress a poem which he had 
destined to form its conclusion. This was ^The 
Lover's Tale,' written in his nineteenth year. Two 
of the three parts had been already printed when 
Tennyson, feeling, as he said later, the imperfection 
of the work, decided to withdraw it from publication. 
Against the resolution to exclude it Hallam earnestly, 
one might say violently, protested. *' Don't give up 
the Lover's Tale," he wrote to Tennyson on the 
twentieth of November. ''Heath is mad to hear of 
your intention, I am madder. You must be point- 
blank mad. It will please vast numbers of people. It 
pleases the wise. You are free from all responsibility 
for it's faults by the few lines of preface. Pray — 
pray — pray — change your mind again. I have ordered 
Moxon to stop proceedings till I hear from you again. ' ' 
But Tennyson was not to be turned from his purpose. 
Still the poem, though withdrawn at the time, was not 
entirely suppressed. The story of it and of his origi- 
nal conclusion not to publish it, he tells us himself in 
the preface to the poem as published in 1879. ''One 
of my friends, however," he added, "who, boylike, 
admired the boy's work, distributed among our 
common associates of that hour some copies of these 
two parts, without my knowledge, without the omis- 



308 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

sions and amendments which I had in contemplation, 
and marred by the many misprints of the compositor. ' ' 
It was the fortune of one of these copies to fall later 
into the hands of a not overscrupulous publisher. He 
determined to reprint it, and did so. This eventually 
led Tennyson to publish the poem thoroughly revised. 
With it in three parts was joined its concluding fourth 
part as a sequel. This was entitled 'The Golden 
Supper, ' and was the work of his later years. 

While the volume of 1832 was going through the 
press, Tennyson made an excursion up the Rhine 
from Rotterdam to Bingen. Early in the year he had 
received a gift of one hundred pounds from his aunt, 
Mrs. Russell. It was probably with that or with some 
of it that he was enabled to carry into effect the 
project of surveying the now familiar scenery of that 
river, but which Byron in the third canto of his 
'Childe Harold' had for the first time brought vividly 
to the attention of his countrymen. So during the 
summer he went up to London and persuaded Hallam 
to accompany him on this trip. It was the year when 
the cholera was ravaging Europe. In consequence 
the two travellers underwent various experiences, 
certain of which could not have contributed to enjoy- 
ment. They were quarantined for a week on the Maas, 
moored by a muddy island on which were buried at 
night the corpses of those taken from the cholera ships 
on the river. On this journey, among other places 
they visited Cologne and Bonn, climbed the Drachen- 
fels, and put up at the isle of Nonnenwerth at the old 
Benedictine convent which had been converted into 



THE POEMS OF 1832 309 

a hotel. On their return from Bingen, they avoided 
retracing the journey by the tame scenery of the lower 
Rhine, but went back by way of Aix-la-Chapelle and 
Brussels. On reaching England both repaired to 
Somersby. From there Hallam wrote to a friend: 
''We went up the Rhine for a month, and as we had 
little coin between us, talked much of economy; but 
the only part of our principles we reduced to practice 
was the reduction of such expenses as letter writing, 
etc." Tennyson himself commemorated certain 
details of this expedition in a poem already referred 
to, which, short as it was, he had ample reason to 
regret writing. 



CHAPTER XII 

LOCKHART'S EEVIEW OF TENNYSON'S SECOND 

VOLUME 

We are told by one of the dramatists of the period 
following the Restoration that hell has no fury like a 
woman scorned. However that may be, literature has 
no fury like a professional critic despitefully scouted. 
Never has this fact been more signally illustrated than 
in the case of Wilson and Lockhart. No two men were 
ever more reckless in their attacks upon others, more 
abusive in their personalities, more unrestrained in 
their own denunciatory utterances. Accordingly it is 
not strange to find that no two men were more keenly 
sensitive to attacks upon themselves. They exhibited 
their resentment not merely with little restraint in 
expression but with no attempt at disguise. 

In 1818, appeared, for illustration, an anonymous 
pamphlet entitled 'Hypocrisy Unveiled.' It was a 
review of the recently founded 'Blackwood's Maga- 
zine.' The publisher it assailed by name, as well as 
Murray, his then London partner in the enterprise. 
Lockhart and Wilson were designated, respectively, by 
the titles given them in the so-called Chaldee Manu- 
script as the Scorpion and the Leopard. Their 
identity was, however, merely intimated; it was 
perhaps not positively known. The publishers men- 



LOCKHAET'S REVIEW 311 

tioned by name wisely kept silence; but the two 
principal contributors of the objectionable person- 
alities contained in the magazine were so enraged 
by the attack made that they revealed themselves as 
authors of the offences charged upon them, by each 
sending a challenge to the anonymous pamphleteer. 
Of course their action did not induce him to come out 
of his hiding-place. Instead he exultingly rejoined in 
a further attack in which he published the challenges 
he had received. ''I really can recollect," wrote 
Murray to Blackwood, '^no parallel to the palpable 
absurdity of your two friends. If they had planned 
the most complete triumph to their adversaries, 
nothing could have been so successfully effective.'" 

Wilson further was specially sensitive, were he 
deprived of the least modicum of praise to which in 
his own opinion he was entitled. Singular instances 
of this craving for flattering notices of himself and 
his works are revealed in his correspondence. In 
1822 came out his work entitled 'Lights and Shadows 
of Scottish Life.' This was given to the veteran 
essayist and novelist, Henry Mackenzie, to review for 
'Blackwood's Magazine.' The proof of the contem- 
plated article was manifestly submitted to the author 
of the book. The reading of it filled him with some- 
thing more than indignation. He wrote from his 
retreat at Kelso a violent letter to the publisher. In 
it he vented his fury both on the character of the 
criticism and of the critic. '*I consider old M.," he 
amiably began, '*to be the greatest nuisance that ever 

1 ' Memoir ' of John Murray, Vol. I, p. 488. 



312 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

infested any Magazine." The dull vile falsehoods, 
he went on to say, to which the old dotard gave vent, 
sprang however not so much from mendacity as from 
self-conceit and sheer incapacity. '* Miserable drivel- 
ling," '' execrable" misstatement, gross and false 
misquotation from the work ''for a despicable pur- 
pose" — these are a few of the choice rhetorical gems 
with which he characterized special remarks of his 
critic. The foolish, false, and disgusting observations 
scattered by the ''old captious body" through the 
article, made the whole of it, he said, actually loath- 
some — so loathsome that it ' ' gives me and Mrs. W. the 
utmost disgust." After these unimpassioned obser- 
vations his concluding remarks are especially edifying. 
"It is not," he wrote, "as you well know, that I can 
possibly be such an ass as to dislike criticism." 
Obviously not, the words just quoted show. "But 
this," continued he, "is mere drivelling falsehood and 
misrepresentation — calculated to injure the book, I 
declare, even in my own eyes, and to do it the greatest 
injury with the public. It is the most sickening dose 
of mawkish misrepresentation I ever read."^ 

Naturally, after this furious remonstrance from 
'Blackwood's' indispensable contributor, Mackenzie's 
review of the book was not permitted to see the light. 
We cannot tell, therefore, what there was in it which 
produced this angry outburst. So far as inferences 
from certain passages in the letter as to its character 
are justifiable, it seems to have been far from a hostile 
criticism. At its possible worst, it could have been no 

1 'William Blackwood and his Sons,' Vol. I, pp. 271-272. 



LOCKHART'S REVIEW 313 

more than a review of the sort so cherished by feeble 
men of not daring to condemn while not desiring to 
praise. But a highly eulogistic notice was the kind 
of one which Wilson demanded. The old essayist who 
had been asked to review his book had doubtless too 
much sense as well as self-respect to minister to the 
author's vanity in that way, and to pay the work a 
tribute which he evidently did not think it deserved 
then and nobody thinks now. In the place of it accord- 
ingly appeared a highly laudatory review of the 
volume in question. It reads as if it might have come 
from Wilson's own hands. Some of it probably did. 
It was certainly revised by him before being published, 
for it contains a note of his own. In fact, before its 
publication he intimated to the publisher the sort of 
criticism which he desired. ''I do not object," he 
wrote, shortly after the letter just mentioned, *Ho a 
nice little eulogistic touch of censure now and then, 
but I must always do these with my own hand."^ He 
exhibited indeed no hesitation in avowing his attitude 
towards criticism. Willing as he was to assail others, 
the sanctity of his own personality must be guarded. 
* ' Though averse to being cut up myself, I like to abuse 
my friends, ' ' he wrote in a later letter.^ 

If Wilson could get into the state of mind here 
described about a review from a veteran man of letters 
which, if in parts blundering, seems to have been as 
favorable on the whole as his work deserved, we can 
conceive something of the wrath he felt at reading the 

1 ' William Blackwood and his Sons, ' Vol. I, p. 272. 
2 Hid., p. 274. 



314 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

little squib directed against ** crusty, rusty, musty, 
fusty Christopher " by a young man not known outside 
of a limited circle. The audacity of the act was 
rendered the more distasteful from the change which 
had taken place in his own position. The half-score 
years which had gone by since Mackenzie had written 
his article had materially affected the estimate in 
which Wilson was held. Then he was rising in general 
repute; but his authority was not established. With 
the retirement of Jeffrey from the editorship of 'The 
Edinburgh Review' he had come to be widely con- 
sidered as the reigning critic of the time. Naturally 
he was as much astounded by the presumption of the 
poet in attacking him as he was made indignant. It 
was, however, hardly consistent with his own position 
and dignity to display publicly then the annoyance and 
irritation he felt. Least of all could he manifest his 
resentment in his own magazine. That would be too 
plain an admission of the extent to which he had been 
galled by the lines addressed to himself. Fortunately 
for him there could be brought into play a much more 
effective agency than anything he himself could 
directly provide. At his command was his old friend 
and associate, the editor of 'The Quarterly Review.' 
Criticism from that periodical would carry far more 
weight with the public than anything which appeared 
in the northern magazine. To Lockhart, accordingly, 
was passed over the task of inflicting punishment 
upon the insolent stripling. 

It would be utterly unwarranted by any positive 
knowledge we possess to assert that Wilson directly 



LOCKHART'S REVIEW 315 

inspired the attack made upon Tennyson in the 
'Quarterly.' Certainly no evidence has ever been 
published even to suggest that it was at his instigation 
that Lockhart wrote his review. But with the intimacy 
and alliance existing between the two men, he could 
not have failed to be cognizant of Lockhart 's intention, 
if he did not prompt his action. The editor of the 
* Quarterly' doubtless needed no solicitation to under- 
take the business of chastening the assailant of his 
old companion in arms. But the attitude of Wilson, 
to be exhibited later, is sufficient to prove beyond 
question that the review of Tennyson met with his 
fullest concurrence, even if it was not written at his 
request. It is assuredly safe to say that had the lines 
addressed to Christopher North never appeared, either 
there would have been no review of the poet's work 
in the 'Quarterly' at all, or if there had been one, it 
would have been of a totally different character. 
Accordingly that periodical proceeded to add still 
another instance to the series of critical blunders 
which are strewn up and down its early pages. The 
same man who in 'Blackwood's' had told Keats to go 
back to his gallipots set out to carry on the traditions 
of the 'Quarterly' by inserting an attack of a similar 
nature upon Keats 's legitimate successor, Tennyson. 
It was in the number for April, 1833, that the review 
came out of the volume of poems dated that same 
year. Were there any real doubt as to the authorship 
of the scurrilous abuse which had characterized the 
so-called criticism of Keats in 'Blackwood's' fifteen 
years before, it would be removed by the opening 



316 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

paragraph of the article on Tennyson. It began with 
a reference to the criticism of the earlier poet 
which had given a peculiar temporary notoriety to 
the 'Quarterly' at the period of its appearance, but 
has permanently added to its discredit in later times. 
That article — the work of John Wilson Croker — had 
been criticism of a particularly stupid sort. But while 
it followed the not unusual method of the anonymous 
reviewer, in being contemptuous as well as condemna- 
tory, it contained nothing of the gross personal vilifica- 
tion which signalized the corresponding article in 
'Blackwood's Magazine.' For the attack now made 
upon Tennyson a sort of provocation might fairly be 
alleged in the foolish retort he had made to the 
criticism of Wilson. But for the fat-wittedness which 
led Lockhart to follow in the footsteps of Croker by 
again assailing Keats there was neither sense nor 
excuse. 

The extent of the critic's folly will not be fully 
appreciated unless one makes himself familiar with 
the situation then existing. Keats had died, clearly 
conscious of his great genius but as clearly under the 
conviction that it had not been given him to demon- 
strate it to the world. ''Here lies one whose name 
was writ in water ' ' were the deathbed words in which 
he expressed his belief that the little he had accom- 
plished, compared with what he was sure he could 
have accomplished, would be insufficient to dissipate 
the storm of detraction which had gathered about his 
head. For a long while it seemed as if his prophecy 
would be realized. Not an edition of any one of his 



LOCKHAET'S REVIEW 317 

poems appeared in England after the volume of 1820 — 
the last published during his lifetime — till his works 
were brought out collectively in 1840 in a cheap form 
in William Smith's Standard Library. Few, too, were 
the references made to him in critical literature during 
the score of years that passed between those two 
publications. So unfamiliar indeed to professional 
critics was even his name that it was frequently spelled 
Keates. 

It was the little knowledge then possessed of that 
poet outside of a limited circle, it was the consequent 
little demand for his works, which furnished Lockhart 
with a pretext for making a mock apology for Croker's 
previous review. With what seems now indescribable 
thick-headedness but which most of his readers doubt- 
less then regarded as wit, he aifected to believe that 
Keats had become a special favorite of the public, and 
that his poetry was circulated and read everywhere. 
He indulged in an ironical lament over the inability 
which had been displayed by the 'Quarterly' to foresee 
the unbounded popularity which that poet had unex- 
pectedly gained. He therefore, to use his own lan- 
guage, took occasion to sing a palinode on the subject 
of 'Endymion.' ''We certainly did not discover," he 
wrote, "in that poem the same degree of merit that its 
more clear-sighted and prophetic admirers did. We 
did not foresee the unbounded popularity which has 
carried it through we know not how many editions; 
which has placed.it on every table; and, what is still 
more unequivocal, familiarized it in every mouth. All 
this splendour of fame, however, though we had not 



318 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the sagacity to anticipate, we have the candour to 
acknowledge; and we request that the publisher of 
the new and beautiful edition of Keats 's works now 
in the press, with graphic illustrations by Calcott and 
Turner, will do us the favour and the justice to notice 
our conversion in his prolegomena." The malicious 
irony of this reference to the dead poet was undoubt- 
edly entertaining to many men at that time. As we 
have seen, it had for its basis the fact that no complete 
edition of the works of Keats had as yet appeared in 
England; that indeed no such edition was procurable 
anywhere save as part of a volume published in Paris ; 
and that while his fame was slowly making its way, 
it was making it very slowly; that consequently his 
poems were no more upon every one's table than were 
his words in every one's mouth; and that of course 
no such illustrated edition of his works as is here 
dwelt upon, had ever been contemplated, far less under- 
taken, by anybody. Lockhart clearly fancied that 
nothing of the sort would ever exist because it did not 
exist then. 

It is not often given to the same man to distinguish 
himself by two such examples of crass incompetence 
of appreciation of a poet, whose greatness he could 
not comprehend, as in the article on Keats in 'Black- 
wood's Magazine' and by the further reference to him 
in the beginning of the article on Tennyson. For 
Lockhart, though far from being a man of genius, was 
a man of great ability. In many ways too he was of 
fine poetic taste and literary acumen. This makes it 
harder to comprehend how totally unconscious he was 



LOCKHART'S REVIEW 319 

of the genius of the writer he was assailing and how 
utterly unsuspicious of the agencies which were then 
at work to place Keats at no distant period among the 
very greatest of his contemporaries. But his previous 
achievements in criticism of the dead poet were now 
to be rivalled by his criticism of the living one. Credit 
indeed must be given to him for his sagacity in detect- 
ing the relationship of Tennyson to Keats in spite of 
his indisposition or perhaps of his incapacity to 
recognize the greatness of either. On the later poet 
he began his review in the same strain of ironical 
praise which he had bestowed upon the earlier. ' * This 
is,'^ he said, ''as some of his marginal notes intimate, 
Mr. Tennyson's second appearance. By some strange 
chance we have never seen his first publication, which, 
if it at all resembles its younger brother, must be by 
this time so popular that any notice of it on our part 
would seem idle and presumptuous; but we gladly 
seize this opportunity of repairing an unintentional 
neglect, and of introducing to the admiration of our 
more sequestered readers a new prodigy of genius — ■ 
another and a brighter star of that galaxy or milky 
way of poetry of which the lamented Keats was the 
harbinger." Then followed the comments upon the 
latter poet which have just been quoted. 

It was in the same strain of mock laudation with 
which Keats had been spoken of that Lockhart pro- 
ceeded to notice the work under review and its author. 
Warned, he said, by his former mishap, wiser by 
experience, and improved as he hoped in taste, he now 
set out to offer Mr. Tennyson a tribute of unmingled 



320 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

approbation. His present task would be therefore to 
bring together for the delight of his readers a few 
specimens of the poet's singular genius and to point 
out, now and then, some of the gems that irradiate his 
poetical crown. This was done by selecting a number 
of passages from the poems and dwelling upon them 
in a strain of pretended admiration. This would have 
been legitimate enough had not the verses been 
mangled and their meaning perverted in order to give 
point to the attack. So long as the purely ironical 
tone was maintained, the review, however unfair in its 
criticism and, in the light of subsequent events, how- 
ever damaging to its author, is entertaining for its 
malice. But the moment the poet is assailed directly, 
the observations often degenerate into what is nothing 
more than a cheap abusiveness. There was not the 
slightest effort made to give any real conception of the 
nature of the work under examination. In fact the 
effort was made to prevent any such conception being 
gained. All the tricks to which disreputable criticism 
resorts were employed. The least valuable pieces 
were largely selected for extended comment. Lines 
and passages were wrenched from the context explain- 
ing and modifying them, so as to give a pretext for 
the employment of what may be designated as a sort 
of horse-raillery. In truth, the review, taken as a 
whole, is a peculiarly bad specimen of a bad class ; for 
while some of it is witty, it is dishonest throughout 
and at times little more than vulgarly vituperative. 

The article concluded with quoting in full the lines 
to Christopher North and commenting upon them and 



LOCKHART'S REVIEW 321 

the attitude towards criticism displayed by the poet. 
It was for the sake of this one piece that the review 
had been really written. If anything were needed to 
render it morally certain that, in this criticism of 
Tennyson's second volume, Lockhart was acting as 
the mouthpiece of Wilson, it would be the dispropor- 
tionate attention which was given to this little poem 
of nine lines taken out of a volume of one hundred and 
sixty-three pages. To it alone were devoted two of 
the fifteen pages which made up the whole of the 
review. It was, he said, one of ''two pieces of lighter 
strain which the volume affords." Accordingly he 
purposed to delight his readers with the ''severe 
retaliation on the editor of the Edinburgh magazine 
which, it seems, had not treated the first volume of 
Mr. Tennyson with the same respect that we have, we 
trust, evinced for the second. ' ' Had the review of the 
whole work been as honest as it was dishonest, this 
would have been a thoroughly justifiable retort. As it 
is, this article in its entirety deserves, as FitzGerald 
said of Croker's previous article on Keats, to be bound 
up with every edition of the poet as a standing warning 
to critics. 

But before entering upon the consideration of these 
lines to Christopher North, Lockhart seized with 
eagerness upon another little poem in the collection 
in which Tennyson had laid himself peculiarly open 
to attack. This was the one entitled ' Darling Room. ' 
Special attention was called to it by printing the whole 
of it with a running comment on its text. The reviewer 
had in this piece the best justification for the malice 



1 



322 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

he displayed. As this poem is no longer found in any 
authorized edition of the poet's works, it is given here 
precisely as printed in the 'Quarterly,' where certain 
words and syllables were intentionally italicized. The 
poem, began Lockhart, ''is elegant and playful; it is 
a description of the author's study, which he affec- 
tionately calls his Darling Room.'' Then follow the 
lines as they appear in the review: 

O darling room, my heart's delight; 
Dear room, the apple of my sight; 
With thy two couches, soft and white, 
There is no room so exquisite; 
No little room so warm and bright, 
Wherein to read, wherein to write. 

For I the Nonnenwerth have seen, 
And Oberwinter's vineyards green. 
Musical Lurlei ; and between 
The hills to Bingen I have been, 
Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene 
Curves towards Mentz — a woody scene. 

Yet never did there meet my sight, 

In any town to left or right, 

A little room so exquisite, 

With two such couches soft and white ; 

Not any room so warm and bright. 

Wherein to read, wherein to write. 

This distinctly dreadful poem has probably never had 
a friend to say anything in its favor. By it Tennyson 
gave a sort of pretext for the title of "School-Miss 
Alfred, ' ' which Bulwer in an anonymous work applied 
to him later; though as we shall see, he came out of 



LOCKHART'S REVIEW 323 

the conflict which ensued with the feeling that he had 
been in the gripe of an opponent who bore a closer 
resemblance to a grizzly bear than to a schoolgirl. 
Assuredly, however, the treasure-house of namby- 
pambyism never had a better representative specimen 
of its contents than this poem. It is so bad of its kind 
that it fairly deserves the title of good. 

To seize upon these two little pieces as fairly repre- 
sentative of the volume was however worse than a 
crime in criticism; it was a stupendous literary 
blunder. Had Tennyson been the poetaster Lockhart 
tried to give the impression of his being, there might 
have been a pretence that he deserved the sarcasm 
which was lavished upon his productions, unfair as it 
would have been even then under the conditions given. 
Unfortunately for the reviewer, Tennyson was very 
far from being a poetaster. Never was he so regarded 
then or later. Never could he have been termed so, 
save by envious men who had approved themselves 
fully entitled to the appellation. Accordingly, as 
things turned out, it was more than inappropriateness 
that characterized his article. It was inept beyond the 
justifiable limits of captious blundering. Few profes- 
sional reviewers there are who do not perpetrate at 
times literary criticisms of which later they come to 
be ashamed themselves; or if they have not enough 
sense for that, they come to learn that their perform- 
ances have brought mortification to their friends and 
hardly concealed glee to their enemies. But it is 
doubtful if in the annals of literary history two grosser 
examples of critical blundering can be found than in 



324 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Lockhart's article on Keats in 'Blackwood's Magazine* 
for 1817 and in the article on Tennyson in 'The 
Quarterly Eeview' for 1833. It is a heavier burden 
to carry down to posterity than even a far greater 
man than he could well bear. Lockhart lived long 
enough to regret for his own sake the composition of 
these two effusions. He lived long enough to see the 
two men whom he had attacked lifted in public esti- 
mation to a pinnacle to which it was hopeless for him 
even to venture to aspire. 

For the moment, however, the triumph remained 
with him. Though the influence of the great quarter- 
lies was then beginning to decline, it was still potent, 
more potent than that of the other agencies which were 
coming to displace it. By it were still affected the 
opinions of a great body of cultivated men. Its dicta 
were accepted as gospel by thousands of readers who 
honestly supposed they had minds of their own. 
There is little danger of our underrating the effect 
Lockhart 's article had in confirming and intensifying 
the tone of depreciatory criticism which had begun to 
show itself in many of the minor periodicals of the 
time. To this effect Tennyson's own action contrib- 
uted. The general character of the criticism to which 
he was subjected as well as his own behavior under 
it naturally come up now for consideration. 




CHAPTER XIII 

THE TEN YEAES' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 
1832-1837 

From no quarter of much influence was warm praise 
accorded to Tennyson's second venture. On the con- 
trary, it had met with almost universal disparage- 
ment, none the less potent in its effect upon the public 
because of its incompetence ; for it appeared in an age 
when the practice of reading reviews of books instead 
of the books themselves had at last fully established 
itself. The volume of poems had, as we have seen, 
been made the object of hostile and occasionally 
virulent attack from numerous quarters, and particu- 
larly from the most influential critical weekly of the 
time. But far more damaging than all these combined 
was Lockhart's review. He who has not made himself 
familiar with the power which the two great quarterlies 
still continued to wield can little comprehend the effect 
wrought by this article upon the estimation in which 
Tennyson soon came to be held. It lasted all through 
the fourth decade of the century. It extended into the 
decade following. It did not even die out entirely after 
Tennyson's reputation had begun to carry everything 
before it. Echoes of it continued to appear until the 
poet was so effectually established in the regard of 
his countrymen that it was no longer felt safe even 



326 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

by the envious, the malignant, and the intellectually 
feeble to avow publicly their hostility. 

At the time itself, however, there was no restraining 
influence of this sort. Lockhart's article set the 
fashion which largely prevailed during the years 
immediately succeeding its appearance, either of 
depreciating the poet or of treating him as altogether 
unworthy of consideration. There have been occa- 
sional efforts put forth in these latter days to designate 
this review as a sportive exhibition of what is termed 
chaff, somewhat malicious to be sure, but on the whole 
laughable. Clearly no such impression was intended 
by the writer; no such impression certainly was then 
made on the reader. It did not seem such to Tenny- 
son's indignant friends and admirers. Nor even did 
it seem such to indifferent onlookers. They too felt 
its gross injustice. The fact that a particular work 
did not sell largely did not impress them as a decisive 
factor in settling its merits. * * The article on Tennyson 
in the Quarterly," said ^The Athenaeum,' '*is strangely 
provocative of comment. No sane man imagines that 
Tennyson is the Homer which the Westminster 
affected to believe ; but he has much fine poetry about 
him; and if we are to give the name of poets only 
to those whose works are illustrated by Turner and 
Calcott, then Wordsworth is no poet, neither is 
Wilson."^ 

Others again regarded Lockhart's attack unfavor- 
ably in contrast with the criticism in 'Blackwood' 
which Tennyson had foolishly resented. This feeling 

1' Athenaeum' for April 13, 1833, p. 234, 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 327 

comes out distinctly in an article on reviewing which 
appeared in the first number of 'The Oxford Univer- 
sity Magazine.' It was in March, 1834, that this 
particular periodical began. It did not overlive a 
year. In it attention was called to the different 
character of the reviews of Tennyson which had 
appeared respectively in the two Tory organs. 
** Compare," it said, ''the article in the Magazine 
with that in the Quarterly Eeview. Here virulent and 
even coarse abuse ; no mitigation and no praise of any 
sort; there ridicule where ridicule was due — praise in 
its right place ; the best things extracted for commen- 
dation — the worst for blame ; all fair and above-board. 
No one now doubts which was the fairer; if Alfred 
Tennyson is still more laught at than wept over, it is 
for the same reason that the philosophy of Democritus 
was more easily learnt than that of Heraclitus; any- 
body can laugh, some eyes are naturally dry." 

The very words contained in this protest against the 
character of the article in the 'Quarterly' — that 
Tennyson was more laught at than wept over — bear 
witness to the effect it had had in covering him with 
ridicule. Its sentiments were echoed and re-echoed 
by the members of that far from limited class of 
readers of little taste and less discernment, who, 
lacking entirely the courage of their own convictions, 
exhibit a desperate hardihood in standing up for the 
convictions of others. It became the fashion to speak 
disparagingly of the poet whenever it was thought 
worth while to speak of him at all. Men who were 
disposed to give expression to their admiration of him 



328 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

were apt to do so with bated breath. A letter of 
Arthur Stanley reveals incidentally this attitude. It 
was written in September, 1834, from the rectory of 
Hurstmonceaux. In it he says that Julius Hare, with 
whom he was stajdng, *' often reads to us in the even- 
ing things quite new to me, for instance (tell it not 
in Gath), A. Tennyson's Poems/ '^ The fear of the 
Philistines did not prevent the future dean of West- 
minster, though then only a boy, from liking much that 
he heard. But this sort of courage could hardly be 
expected of the mass of men. The followers of Dagon 
were not merely kept from caring about the poet but 
were deprived of the disposition to become familiar 
with his writings. This feeling naturally extended to 
persons who would have been fairly certain to admire 
his work, had they once come to read it. 

The attack in the article did not indeed hurt Tenny- 
son in the eyes of the chosen circle which had early 
gathered about him. As his decriers had formed their 
opinion of his poetry not from reading it, but from 
reading a particular review of it; so to some extent 
the adherents of Tennyson largely retorted in kind. 
His admirers, far from heeding Lockhart's criticism, 
often disdained even to look at it. Unfortunately for 
the reputation of the poet his readers were few, while 
the readers of the * Quarterly' were many. Illustra- 
tions abound on every side both of the fervor of his 
partisans and of the ignorance and indifference of the 
general public. For instance, Fanny Kemble tells us 
of the intense admiration she and her family felt for 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 206. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 329 

Tennyson's poetry in these early days of his author- 
ship ; and of the indignation and scorn with which they 
received the slightest word of adverse criticism. The 
contrary state of mind then existing is brought out 
distinctly in a story she relates in the 'Records of a 
Girlhood. " From it we can get a fairly good concep- 
tion of the attitude taken by the admirers of the poet 
as well as that of those who obtained all their knowl- 
edge of him from the article in the 'Quarterly.' ''I 
remember," she wrote, ''Mrs. Milman, one evening at 
my father's house, challenging me laughingly about 
my enthusiasm for Tennyson, and asking me if I had 
read a certain severely caustic and condemnatory 
article in the Quarterly upon his poems. 'Have you 
read it?' said she; 'it is so amusing! Shall I send it 
to your 'No, thank you,' said I; 'have you read the 
poems, may I ask?' 'I cannot say that I have,' said 
she, laughing. 'Oh, then,' said I (not laughing), 
'perhaps it would be better that I should send you 
those.' " 

The person who is designated as Mrs. Milman could 
hardly have been other than the wife of the future 
historian and dean of St. Paul's, in whose play of 
'Fazio' the actress had early in 1831 achieved great 
success in the part of Bianca. But the conversation 
could not have taken place much before the end of 
1836 at best, and it may have been a good deal later ; 
for Fanny Kemble left England for America before 
the publication of Lockhart's article and did not 
return from this country till near the close of the year 

ip. 184. 



330 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

just mentioned. A review, the memory of which could 
last for so long a time as this, must have produced 
a profound impression on many minds. Certain it is 
that this atmosphere of disparagement continued to 
dwell about the poet for many years to come. In later 
days when Tennyson's name and fame filled the whole 
land, when periodicals were eager to pay the highest 
of prices for his most ordinary productions, his old 
Cambridge associates were wont to contrast the respect 
if not enthusiasm which waited upon his poorest 
achievement with the ridicule which the early believers 
in his genius encountered on almost every side. In 
1859 Stephen Spring-Eice, one of the band which had 
surrounded the poet at the university, expressed his 
astonishment at the change which had taken place in 
public opinion. ''I hear," he wrote in a letter to a 
friend, ''that McMillan has given Alfred £250 for a 
poem to come out in the next number of his new 
magazine. What a change! I sometimes feel a sort 
of amazed perplexity, reaching across a few years to 
pluck a fragment of the past to compare it with the 
present. It seems an unreality to recall old times at 
Cambridge when all the world was ready to laugh 
at us for our faith in Alfred and to compare it with 
his present popularity. ' " 

This attitude of indifference or hostility on the part 
of the public had undoubtedly been caused largely by 
criticism, especially by that of ' The Quarterly Review. ' 
For its long continuance, however, Tennyson himself 
must be held almost wholly responsible. His literary 

1 'Mrs, Brookfield and her Circle,' Vol. II, p. 482. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 331 

activity did not cease with the appearance of his second 
volume, though in all probability it is likely to have 
been curtailed. What did cease was the publication 
of the poems he then wrote. This course of action, or 
rather of inaction, which he adopted, was a fatal 
mistake. One consequence of the mistake was that 
the general recognition of his genius was distinctly 
retarded. Tennyson's repute, high in a very limited 
circle, would speedily have extended to the world at 
large, had the publication of successive productions 
brought his name to its attention. A far more serious 
consequence was a failure in the quantity if not the 
quality of the work he produced ; for, as has been said, 
though an author may go on composing as good prose 
or even better until an age is reached when life is no 
longer so much enjoyed as it is endured, it is not so 
with the writer of verse. In 1835 Tennyson was 
twenty-six years old. Before that date no small 
proportion of the poems had been written which 
contributed specifically to the success of the edition 
of 1842. But though composed thus early, they never 
travelled beyond the circle of his personal friends. 
To the world at large he would not give them. The 
result has already been indicated in the delay of the 
appreciation of his genius by the public, and too 
probably by the loss of much fine work which he would 
have written under its encouragement. Had Tennyson 
then continued to go on publishing, his early career 
would have undergone distinct change. He had 
learned by experience how unsubstantial is the repu- 
tation conferred by favorable criticism; he would 



332 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

equally have learned how slight is the injury wrought 
by unfavorable criticism in the face of continuous 
great production. In that case the article in the 
* Quarterly' would speedily have had at the time itself 
a more damaging effect upon the reputation of the 
review and the reviewer than upon the reputation of 
the poet. Consequently the only successful answer to 
the critic was not merely to write but to print. There 
were not wanting those who were anxious that he 
should take this course. In the latter half of 1834 
his brother Frederick, then in Italy, wrote to him 
urging him to publish the following spring. This he 
would not do. Lack of health, lowness of spirits, were 
the reasons alleged for the refusal. He thus played 
directly into the hands of his depredators. 

Had Hallam lived, his influence might have been 
sufficient to overcome Tennyson's reluctance to try 
once more his fortune with the public; for no opinion 
was so potent as his with the poet. But Hallam was 
dead. To entreaties from others he refused to listen. 
There was no encouragement in England, he believed, 
for poetic production. The son tells us that his father 
was so far persuaded that the English people would 
never care for his verse that he was not disposed to 
write, at all events not to publish. The atmosphere 
of his own country he looked upon as so unsympathetic 
that he at one time half resolved to live abroad in 
Jersey, or in the south of France, or in Italy.^ There 
is a letter he wrote undated — ^but probably belonging 
to 1840 or 1841 — to a friend of his residing in Florence, 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 97, 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 333 

telling him that he had sometimes tried, though with- 
out effect, to persuade his family to live abroad.^ It 
was the result of this belief of his and his consequent 
attitude that with the exception of the contributions 
already mentioned, to the Annuals — and these wrung 
from him rather than contributed— nothing of Tenny- 
son's was printed during the ten years which followed 
the publication of the volume of 1832. So far as his 
reputation at the time was concerned, it has already 
been described as a fatal mistake; to some extent 
indeed it may have affected his reputation for all time. 
For his inaction belonged to that period of life in the 
career of a great poet when his intellectual activity is 
most in evidence and the result of it usually most 
successful. 

Many have been the attempts to account for this 
prolonged silence ; various have been the reasons given 
for it. Two of these explanations have appeared 
frequently. One is that his grief for the death of 
Hallam paralyzed for a long period all effort. As a 
matter of fact, the loss of his friend stimulated his 
poetical activity. A more plausible though equally 
worthless explanation of his failure to come before 
the public is that it sprang from his desire to perfect 
himself in his art, and his determination not to appear 
in print until that result had been satisfactorily 
achieved. Both these considerations may perhaps 
have had some slight influence upon his course of 
action. It is possible indeed that Tennyson may have 
tried to persuade himself that they had great influence. 

2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 178. 



334 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

But they were certainly never controlling ones. Too 
much stress indeed cannot be placed upon their futility. 
No far-fetched or elaborate explanations of this sort 
are necessary. No one can understand Tennyson's 
conduct throughout his whole career who does not 
recognize his abnormal sensitiveness to criticism. It 
mattered little or nothing how despicable was the 
source from which it came. This sensitiveness was 
more than morbid ; it partook almost of the nature of 
actual disease. It was manifest from his earliest 
years. Even in the admiring circle which gathered 
about him in his college days, it was understood that 
when he read a poem no words of critical censure were 
to come from his hearers. The same infirmity clung 
to him in later life when the greatest of his contem- 
poraries were the loudest in his praises ; when to him 
belonged the countenance of the mighty as opposed 
to the carpings of those who could do little more than 
make faces; when indeed dissent from his supreme 
poetical pre-eminence was scarcely heard from any 
quarter entitled to consideration. 

But even then the poet's sensitiveness did not desert 
him. No writer, to be sure, is likely to read hostile 
criticism with unmixed pleasure. But many authors 
read it with indifference. More than that, they not 
unfrequently read it with contempt, when they recog- 
nize it as the product of stupidity, envy, or malice. 
Such, however, was never the case with Tennyson. 
Even in the height of his fame the sting of the puniest 
literary insect gave him as much pain as the applause 
of the loftiest intellect gave him pleasure. It is 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 335 

probably safe to say that the pain it gave him was 
greater. He himself admitted this fact. He was so 
sensitive to hostile criticism that "I have heard him 
say," remarked one of his friends, ''all the praise he 
had ever received didn't outweigh for the moment a 
spiteful and unkindly criticism, even though the 
criticism (he once added) was directed against the 
straightness of his toe-nail.'" This sensitiveness he 
himself recognized as a weakness; he was in a way 
ashamed of it; but he could not escape from it. He 
knew as a matter of fact that there are men by whom 
it is discreditable to be praised; that disparagement 
is the highest compliment it is in their power to pay. 
But while he could see this, he could not feel it. He 
knew he ought to rejoice in the censure of criticasters ; 
but he did not rejoice. "What is the gadfly of irre- 
sponsible criticism to youf" said to him one of his 
visitors, while he was at the height of his fame. ''How 
should you mind?" "But I do mind," was the quick 
rejoinder, as of an inconsolable child.^ Consequently, 
however contemptible was the source from which the 
attack came, no matter how impotent was the hand 
which hurled the dart, the wound it inflicted festered. 
It is hard for most of us to recognize the ability of 
the petty nature to inflict pain upon the higher. The 
most wretched of poetasters, writhing under the sense 
of his inferiority, could feel assured that his attack, 
however powerless to affect the poet's reputation with 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. II, p. 86, 

2 Miss E. E. Chapman in 'The Keview of Eeviews' for November. 
1892. 



336 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the public, could be relied upon to cause suffering to 
the poet himself, if it chanced to meet his eye. 

There was a partial justification for this sensitive- 
ness, however absurd it may seem, in the constantly 
repeated absurdity of the criticism received. All 
through his ten years of silence there was a steady 
uniformity in the character of the charges brought 
against Tennyson's work. They were echoed and 
re-echoed, furthermore, down to the middle of the 
century and even later. In the account of the volume 
of 1832, it has already been recorded that again and 
again he was taken to task specifically for *' affecta- 
tion." This accusation fairly ran rampant in the 
criticism of his early writings. For at least a score 
of years it was never omitted when any pretext could 
be devised for lugging it in. It seems to have made its 
first public appearance in 'Blackwood's Magazine'; 
at all events its occurrence there gave it standing. 
Having gained a foothold in that periodical, it was 
repeated with wearisome iteration by every critic of 
the time. It was a fairly safe charge to bring; for 
it was vague. It saved all trouble of thinking. It is 
manifestly clear that many and probably most who 
used it had not the slightest idea of what they meant 
by it; for at the time there were others against whom 
the same accusation was brought. Accordingly it is 
none too easy for the modern reader to comprehend 
what the bringer of the charge manifestly did not. 
Still as commonly understood, at least as then fre- 
quently stated, it seems to have consisted largely in 
three things. First, there was the poet's asserted 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 337 

practice of making Greek compounds out of honest 
Saxon phrases. They were joined together so as 
to seem one word instead of being kept apart so as 
to form two. Consequently there was no small num- 
ber of compounds such as altarthrone, May morning, 
mountainstream, lilygarlands, cloverhills, turretstairs, 
and particularly a large collection of those beginning 
with the word summer, such as summerflowers, 
summermoon, summerplain, summer pride, summer- 
vault, summerview, and summerwoods. This was due, 
as Tennyson himself said late in life, to an absurd 
aversion he had at that time to hyphens. This aversion 
did not last long, and the practice was abandoned after 
the publication of his first volume. But of itself it 
manifestly had not the slightest weight in determining 
the value of the poetry as poetry. 

A second evidence of affectation was the employment 
of archaic or obsolete or unusual words. These 
Tennyson's familiarity with our earlier literature led 
him occasionally to introduce. As with them the critic 
was usually not acquainted, he was led by his igno- 
rance to regard them with peculiar disfavor. He 
seemed to feel it a sort of personal affront that his 
author should be familiar with something he himself 
knew nothing about. But the third and the most 
common of the acts which subjected him to the charge 
of affectation was that he printed his words as no one 
had ever printed them before. He had, it was asserted, 
so much more faith in the length of his readers' ears 
than in their quality, — it was a faith fully justified 
in the case of certain of his critics — that he took pains 



338 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to provide at his own care and cost the music of his 
verse by accenting the final ed of the past participle, 
when it was to be pronounced as a separate syllable. 
It is obvious that the practice censured is, like the 
first, a peculiarity of printing and not of expression. 
Like that, too, it has no bearing upon the value of the 
verse as verse. 

One however would infer from the frequency with 
which this purely conventional proceeding is mentioned 
that critical imbecility had exalted it into a matter 
of dearest concern and direst consequence. It finds 
expression in article after article which appeared 
during the ten years of silence. Even after the 
publication of the edition of 1842, it turns up at first 
not infrequently. It is found even in John Forster's 
review of the poems in *■ The Examiner. ' He observed 
there that the affectation in the way of printing had 
been quietly dropped. This charitable view was not 
taken by all others. The asserted affectation still 
continued to be insisted upon. With the growing fame 
of the poet this once prevalent kind of criticism 
generally disappeared. Still it was always liable to 
turn up if the reviewer had nothing else to say when 
he had undertaken the task of finding fault. It is 
occasionally heard even in our own time; for few 
things have the vitality of feeble criticism. But under 
any conception of what was meant by the term 
"affectation," altogether too much stress was laid 
upon it. Poe, in speaking with a good deal of scorn 
of the method of decrying impliedly the higher merits 
of an author by insisting upon the lower, drew one 



THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 339 

of his illustrations of the practice from remarks of 
this kind made upon the poet. * ' Tennyson, ' ' he wrote, 
' ' perceiving how vividly an imaginative effect is aided, 
now and then, by a certain quaintness judiciously 
introduced, brings the latter, at times, in support of 
his most glorious and most delicate imagination; — 
whereupon his brother poets hasten to laud the imagi- 
nation of Mr. Somebody, whom nobody imagined to 
have any, 'and the somewhat affected quaintness of 
Tennyson.' " 

Two other charges there were which frequently 
appeared in the criticism of Tennyson during this 
fourth decade and even later. They are apparently 
contradictory. One is that he was obscure ; the other 
that he failed in the exhibition of profound reflective- 
ness. Contradictory as they might seem, they flour- 
ished vigorously side by side. The former turns up 
with a fair degree of frequency; the latter was heard 
rather more often. It was not uncommon to have it 
asserted that Tennyson concealed his lack of ideas 
behind a gorgeous raiment of words. It was in a 
measure a just penalty for his own one-time charac- 
terization of Byron's poetry as rhetoric, that he him- 
self should have been made later the recipient of this 
same sort of cheap critical comment. It was intimated 
again and again that he lacked Thought — it was 
invariably thought with a capital letter in which it 
was implied that he was deficient. This want of 
thought was much deplored by critics who had some- 
how got the impression that they themselves were in 
the habit of thinking. 



340 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

There seems indeed to be a belief among many that 
poetry, to be really great, must be surcharged with 
profound thought. Verse which lacks this quality 
can never be deemed of a high order. Now thought 
in the finest and highest sense of the word is always 
likely to occur in great poetry. But it is not necessary 
to its existence, nor to the effect produced by it. In 
truth, the passages which require the least intellectual 
exertion on the part of the reader are very frequently 
those which make the most powerful appeal to the 
heart. For the poet it is amply sufficient to utter in 
a way no one else can that which we all think and feel 
but for which none of us are able to find adequate 
expression. The great artist comes along and says 
for us what we say clumsily or at best unimpressively. 
He says it too in such a way that it never has to be 
said again. The idea has had its definite setting. 
The history of scores of the most famous poems prove 
the truth of this contention. It is in the power of 
genius alone to lift the common out of the region of 
the commonplace and clothe it with imperishable 
beauty. It cannot be maintained that ' L 'Allegro ' and 
'n Penseroso,' with their opposing views of life, 
convey observations which are peculiarly profound. 
Few of the great elegiac poems contain reflections that 
startle us by their novelty or impress us by their depth. 
To do anything of the sort is not their business. That 
is to give utterance to sentiments which are common 
to all of us but which are for the first time expressed 
in words that all of us feel. 

There is nothing, for instance, in Gray's 'Elegy in 



THE TEN YEAES' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 341 

a Country Churchyard' which is novel or startling 
in the way of a contribution to thought. There is not 
a sentence in it which cannot be comprehended by any 
one at a single reading. There are in it no allusions 
to perplexing problems of life or duty or destiny. The 
reflections it embodies are such as would occur to any 
one who reflected at all. Yet no poem of its character, 
perhaps no short poem of any character, ever attained 
a popularity so immediate and has retained it so 
unbrokenly during all the revolutions of taste which 
have gone on since its publication. Gray himself was 
so conscious that there was in the 'Elegy' nothing 
which had not been thought and felt and said by 
thousands that he was a good deal astounded and 
apparently somewhat disgusted by the phenomenal 
success which at once waited upon it. He considered 
it as being little more than a collection of common- 
places. There was nothing in it, he said, which any 
one might not have uttered. In one sense this was 
true. What he failed to take into consideration was 
that the reflections we all make and the feelings we all 
entertain it requires genius to convey in a permanent 
and effective form — the felicity of expression, the 
beauty which make them linger in the memory and 
cause them to become part of the imperishable riches 
of the literature of the language in which they appear. 
The foolish criticism of the various kinds here 
specified painfully affected Tennyson's peculiarly 
sensitive nature. To a man so constituted the ill 
reception accorded to his second venture had an effect 
which it is almost impossible for the ordinary writer 



342 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to conceive. He had described the poet as dowered 
not only with the love of love and the hate of hate, but 
also with the scorn of scorn. If this last attribute be 
essential to the poetic nature, no one was ever more 
signally lacking in it than himself. After the gener- 
ally hostile criticism the volume of 1832 had received, 
but more especially after the attack in a periodical 
wielding the wide influence of the ' Quarterly, ' he was 
averse to having his name brought before the public 
in any form, even indeed for praise. A singular 
illustration of this state of mind comes to light in 
connection with criticism of which there will be occa- 
sion to speak later in detail. He had heard from a 
friend that John Stuart Mill was going to review him. 
Furthermore, he was going to review him favorably. 
Against any action of the sort Tennyson protested. 
* ' It is the last thing I wish for, ' ' he wrote to Spedding. 
''I would," he continued, ''that you or some other 
who may be friends of Mill would hint as much to him. 
/ do not wish to he dragged forward again in any shape 
before the reading public at present, particularly on 
the score of my old poems, most of which I have so 
corrected (particularly 'CEnone') as to make them 
much less imperfect, which you who are a wise man 
would own if you had the corrections.'" The italics 
here are the poet's own. 

In the generally unfavorable criticism to which he 
was subjected during the years immediately following 
the publication of the volume of 1832, there was 
occasionally a half-hearted recognition of his genius 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 145. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 343 

based evidently not so much on the critic's apprecia- 
tion of it as on his appreciation of the fact that behind 
the poet was a body of small but earnest and able 
admirers. In 1833 Allan Cunningham contributed to 
'The Athenseum' a series of papers upon the literature 
of the preceding fifty years. Towards the conclusion 
he gave an account of the younger writers. These 
articles were subsequently collected and published in 
a volume. The criticism it contains is usually of the 
most commonplace character. To us now, the work, 
however, is interesting for the cautious way in which 
it dealt with Tennyson, its careful repetition of the 
current critical cant about his language and expres- 
sion, but above all for the acknowledgment it makes 
of the existence of a band of men who had more insight 
than their contemporaries. ''Alfred Tennyson," 
wrote Cunningham, "has a happy fancy; his origi- 
nality of thought is sometimes deformed by oddity 
of language; and his subject has not unfrequently to 
bear the weight of sentiments which spring not nat- 
urally from it. He has lyrical ease and vigour, and 
is looked upon by sundry critics as the chief living 
hope of the Muse. ' ' 

There was during this period one specific piece of 
criticism, of which Tennyson was made the subject, 
that is worth recording here, because singularly 
enough it has been frequently cited as an evidence of 
the high appreciation in which he was beginning to 
be held at that early time. It is a sort of appreciation 
from which a man of sense might well pray to be 
delivered. Coleridge had died in 1834. In May, 1835, 



344 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

appeared two volumes of specimens of his 'Table 
Talk' under the editorship of his nephew and son- 
in-law, Henry Nelson Coleridge. It is too often the 
misfortune of a man of genius that his foolishest 
observations are recorded and cherished as evidence 
of almost superhuman insight. Coleridge's table talk 
is an interesting collection of his utterances on all sorts 
of subjects, full of wisdom and of unwisdom, contain- 
ing reflections of profoundest significance and of 
keenest appreciation intermixed with the display of 
the most senseless prejudices and at times of astound- 
ing ignorance. In this work under date of April 24, 
1833, he is represented as paying his respects to the 
poet in the following words. ''I have not," he said, 
**read through all Mr. Tennyson's poems, which have 
been sent to me ; but I think there are some things of 
a good deal of beauty in what I have seen. The 
misfortune is, that he has begun to write verses 
without very well understanding what metre is. Even 
if you write in a known and approved metre, the odds 
are, if you are not a metrist yourself, that you will 
not write harmonious verses ; but to deal in new metres 
without considering what metre means and requires, 
is preposterous. What I would, with many wishes for 
success, prescribe to Tennyson, — indeed without it he 
can never be a poet in act, — is to write for the next 
two or three years in none but one or two well-known 
and strictly defined metres, such as the heroic couplet, 
the octave stanza, or the octo-syllabic measure of the 
Allegro and Penseroso. He would, probably, thus get 
imbued with a sensation, if not a sense, of metre, 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 345 

without knowing it, just as Eton boys get to write 
such good Latin verses by conning Ovid and Tibullus. 
As it is, I can scarcely scan his verses." 

This pretentious piece of advice has been given here 
in full not because it is intrinsically of the slightest 
earthly importance, but because on the one hand it 
has been spoken of as conveying an appreciative 
tribute to Tennyson himself; and on the other hand 
because of the various attempts that have been made 
to reconcile its oracular utterances with its complete 
failure to conform to later fact, and with its assump- 
tion of superiority^ in a matter in which the speaker, 
great as was the genius he possessed, was distinctly 
inferior to the writer upon whose performance he was 
commenting. The whole criticism is indeed on a level 
with some of Coleridge's linguistic and even literary 
pronouncements in which the extreme of ignorance 
was often combined with the extreme of positive 
assertion. Tennyson, we know, saw and read this 
passage. It is hardly necessary to observe that he 
did not follow the patronizing advice given in it ; that 
for the next two or three years he did not confine 
himself to the three measures prescribed for his 
guidance, though unless he did so, he was assured that 
he would never become ' ' a poet in act. " In spite of 
his disregard of this volunteered counsel, there is a 
general impression that he did become a poet — a much 
greater one indeed than his counsellor. Coleridge's 
critical discernment was in this instance about equal 
to his prophetic vision. His appreciation was no more 
illuminating than it was enthusiastic. 



346 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

The only critical utterance of this period on the 
productions of the poet which still remains worth 
reading after the lapse of four fifths of a century, 
came from a quarter from which it would hardly have 
been expected. It was the work of John Stuart Mill. 
Tennyson had protested, as we have seen, against the 
publication of this review, even though he had heard 
it was to be of a favorable character. If his objection 
ever came to the ears of the writer, it had no effect 
whatever upon his action. The name of Mill indeed 
might seem to be one that would not suggest a man 
who would be inclined to sympathize with the peculiar 
characteristics which distinguish Tennyson's verse. 
But nowhere was there published then — perhaps it is 
safe to add nowhere has there been published since — a 
more appreciative criticism of the work which the poet 
had up to this time produced, a keener and more dis- 
criminating study of its merits and defects than can be 
found in the article which the future political econo- 
mist then published. The criticism appeared in the 
second number of ' The London Review, " a short-lived 
quarterly which had been started in 1835 in conse- 
quence of the dissatisfaction of the so-called philo- 
sophical radicals with the course of the 'Westminster.' 
In the following year, however, the two periodicals 
were united. Not merely for its coming from the man 
it did, but for the character of its criticism, this article 
merits a detailed examination. 

' ' Towards the close of 1830, ' ' Mill began, ' ' appeared 
a small volume of poems, the work of a young and 

1 Vol. I, p. 402, July, 1835. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 347 

unknown author, and which, with considerable faults 
(some of them of a bad kind), gave evidence of powers 
such as had not for many years been displayed by any 
new aspirant to the character of a poet. The first 
publication was followed in due time by a second in 
which the faults of its predecessor were still visible, 
but were evidently on the point of disappearing ; while 
the positive excellence was not only greater and more 
uniformly sustained, but of a higher order. ' ' In these 
opening sentences, the general tone of Mill's criticism 
was indicated. When it came to detail, he pointed out 
as Tennyson's most characteristic excellence the power 
of scene-painting in the higher sense of the term — 
that is, not the cheap representation of external 
phenomena, but the power of creating scenery to 
harmonize with the state of mind of the individual 
portrayed. His principal illustration is the sufficiently 
marked one of the poem in the volume of 1830 entitled 
'Mariana.' In this piece the love story at the base 
of it is suggested in the refrain alone; even in that 
it is only suggested, it is not detailed. The whole 
strength of the writer is put forth in the portrayal 
of the desolation of the moated grange to correspond 
with the wretchedness and gloom of the woman 
abandoned by her lover. The level waste, the black- 
ened waters of the sluice, the decay of all objects 
pertaining to the once busy household life, the flower- 
pots crusted by the encroaching moss, the creaking of 
doors upon rusty hinges, the shriek of the mouse 
behind the mouldering wainscot, these and numerous 
other details impart to the situation of the deserted 



348 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

maiden a sensation of dreariness which pages of 
description could not convey. Furthermore, Mill 
quoted in full the second part of *The May Queen/ 
termed 'New Year's Eve,' as a specimen of simple 
genuine pathos arising out of situations and feelings 
common to all mankind, and therefore fitted for a 
more extensive popularity than any other poem in 
the two volumes. But the reviewer's own favorite 
was * The Lady of Shalott. ' AVith the exception of its 
last stanza which, as it appeared in its original form, 
he disliked, he gave this piece in full. He asserted that 
it must be ranked among the very first of its class in 
the combination of the powers of narration and of 
scene-painting. Though he deemed its versification 
less exquisite, he placed the poem in other respects 
by the side of * The Ancient Mariner ' and ' Christabel. * 
Mill 's criticism was as much a review of the volume 
of 1830 as of that of 1832. Of the poems contained 
in the former he spoke with commendation of the 
' Eecollections of the Arabian Nights,' ''The Dying 
Swan,' 'The Kraken,' 'The Sleeping Beauty,' and of 
the two poems beginning "In the gloomy light" and 
"A spirit haunts the year's last hours." These last 
in his opinion were improperly called songs. The 
pieces in the second volume which he specifically 
praised — frequently with more or less of quotation — 
were 'Isabel,' 'Eleanore,' 'The Sisters,' 'OEnone,' 
'The Palace of Art,' and 'The Lotos-Eaters.' With 
the mention of all these he declared that he had by 
no means exhausted the variety of beauty to be found 
in the two volumes. But Mill, though he pointed out 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 349 

the qualities in which in his opinion Tennyson excelled, 
was not in the least blind to what he deemed his 
defects. Accordingly it may be worth while to specify 
what a man of so much intellectual power found to 
censure as well as to praise in poems upon the exact 
value of which the consensus of the generation had 
not even begun to settle. Mill looked upon 'Claribel,' 
the verses headed 'Elegiacs,' and 'A Dirge' as com- 
parative failures. Worse failures than these were 
'The Merman' and 'The Mermaid.' In them the poet 
was actually puerile. Upon the patriotic productions, 
as we may call them, he was especially severe. Of two 
pieces in particular, the 'English Warsong' and the 
'National Song,' he was of the opinion that "unless 
they are meant for bitter ridicule of vulgar nation- 
ality, and of the poverty of intellect which usually 
accompanies it, their appearance here is unaccount- 
able." The same remark was made about the sonnet 
on Bonaparte. If not so childish in manner, it had 
still something of the same spirit which characterized 
the preceding two just mentioned — that is, if these 
were to be taken as serious. 

Certain too of the small poems Mill regarded as 
without meaning; or at least, if the author had a 
meaning, he had not been able to express it. The ones 
he specified as liable to this censure were the two songs 
to the 'Owl,' the verses entitled 'The How and the 
Why,' and a little poem of eight lines beginning with 
the words "Who can say." This Mill entitled 'Today 
and Yesterday.' These and two others are the only 
ones in the second volume which he cared to have 



350 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

omitted, thougli there were two more which he looked 
upon as unsatisfactory, though not positive failures. 
These two were the poem beginning ' ' All good things 
have not kept aloof," and the one entitled 'Hes- 
perides,' notwithstanding what he conceded to be its 
fine opening. The two to be positively rejected were 
the lines on Christopher North and the stanzas of 
'0 Darling Room' which he characterized as a ''little 
piece of childishness." 

In nothing did Mill show the superiority of his 
estimate of the poetry that Tennyson had up to that 
time produced over the silly criticism which had then 
current vogue, than in his treatment of the volume 
of 1832 as compared with that of 1830. He spoke with 
the contempt it deserved of the common assertion that 
the late volume had fallen off from the poetic power 
displayed in the earlier. The superiority of the 
second venture he emphatically proclaimed. There 
were but few pieces in it to which he took exception. 
More than that he did not fail to make emphatic that 
not only had there been no falling off but how almost 
immeasurable had been the advance which Tennyson 
had made during the nearly thirty months that had 
elapsed between the publication of the two volumes. 
This we all see now; then it had been hid from the 
majority of professional critics, and continued to be 
hid for many years later. The first volume, he said, 
gave evidence of powers such as had not for many 
years been displayed by any new aspirant to the 
character of poet. In the second, while the faults of 
its predecessor were still visible, they were evidently 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 351 

on the point of disappearing. The positive excellences 
of the poet were not only greater and more uniformly- 
sustained, but they were of a distinctly higher order. 
His imagination and his reason had alike advanced. 
Mill did not predict positively his future; but he 
clearly indicated, that if the poet corrected the few 
faults he still possessed, a high place in English 
literature would be securely his. 

Mill's article was the first public manifestation of 
the reaction against the estimate of Tennyson which 
had been generally current in periodical literature 
after the publication of the volume of 1832. But it is 
full as noticeable for the review of Tennyson's re- 
viewer — though his name was not mentioned — as for 
his criticism of the poet. The different character of 
the two notices which the volumes had received, the 
one in 'Blackwood's Magazine' and the other in the 
* Quarterly,' had, as we have seen, more than once 
attracted attention. Mill in turn discussed these 
articles. To the one in the monthly he did exact 
justice. That it displayed the usual levity and 
flippancy of that periodical he conceded. But it also 
evinced one of its better characteristics, a genuine 
appreciation and willing recognition of genius. The 
praise or blame in it, though shovelled out rather 
than measured, was on the whole fairly discriminating. 
Accordingly in his opinion, Tennyson's lines to 
Christopher North merely expressed in a common- 
place way the author's resentment against a critique 
which merited from him no resentment, but rather, all 
things considered, a directly contrary feeling. On the 



352 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

other hand, Mill had hardly language sufficiently 
contemptuous to express his opinion of the article 
in 'The Quarterly Review.' The method its writer 
had followed he declared to be the abundantly hack- 
neyed one of selecting the few bad passages in the 
volume — not amounting to three pages in all — and 
such others as, by being separated from the context, 
might be made to appear ridiculous. These were then 
held up as specimens of the whole work. Not only 
was the method bad, but in his opinion the execution 
was worse. The criticism was in a strain of dull irony, 
the point of which consisted in its ill nature. Mill's 
treatment of the reviewer cannot itself be deemed a 
triumph of amiability. He styled him in one place 
''the small critic of the Quarterly," in another "the 
egregious critic," and the second epithet conveys not 
even so complimentary a sense as the first. He cites 
some of his remarks to comment on their imbecility. 
His general impression of 'The Quarterly Review' 
itself may be summed up in his assertion that the 
periodical in question, both under its original and 
under its present management, never recognized any 
new claim upon its admiration unless it was recom- 
mended by party interest or was forced upon it by 
the public voice. 

During the years which followed his father's death 
till the time of his own marriage, Tennyson's regular 
home was with the family. As it continued to remain 
at Somersby until 1837, that was naturally his resi- 
dence during this particular period. From the place 
itself, however, he constantly made excursions of 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 353 

greater or less length. Their frequency and extent 
indeed depended largely upon the contents of his 
pocket-book; but we hear of him at times in various 
parts of Great Britain. It was on one of these excur- 
sions that his previously slight acquaintance with 
FitzGerald ripened into friendship. FitzGerald was 
born the same year as he. He entered Cambridge 
University in 1826 and was graduated in 1830. But 
though during two years of this time he was a member 
of the same college as Tennyson, they seem never to 
have met until some little time after they had both 
left the institution. This too in spite of the fact that 
FitzGerald himself was intimate with two or three 
persons who were special friends of the poet. One of 
these was Spedding. It was while on a visit to him 
at his father's residence, Mirehouse on Bassenthwaite 
Lake, that Tennyson and he became intimate. The 
acquaintance indeed was without doubt largely helped 
on by the weather ; for during the three weeks of their 
stay, that was simply abominable. Rain prevailed 
constantly. This naturally threw them much of the 
time upon each other for entertainment. 

Spedding 's father was what is called a practical 
man, and he manifestly had no great admiration for 
the two unpractical visitors who were special friends 
of his son, particularly for the poetical one. He was, 
however, very courteous to his guests. All he asked 
for himself was to be let alone; and interested as he 
was in the care of his farm, and absent much of the 
day from the house, it was an easy matter to comply 
with his wishes in this particular. A man evidently 



354 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of a high type of character, he was from the purely 
literary point of view a fair representative of the 
hard-headed, middle-class Philistine. So far as poets 
were concerned, the best he could do was to regard 
them as specimens of a mild type of lunatic. In that 
region Coleridge and Shelley had resided for a longer 
or shorter time. The older Spedding had seen too 
much of them and other verse-makers to think very 
highly of them or their trade. He naturally could not 
see much sense in the interest manifested by his son 
in such trifles as lines about the death of Arthur and 
about the Lord of Burleigh and other pieces which 
were later to make up part of the volumes of 1842. 
FitzGerald indeed heard read during this visit 'The 
Day Dream,' 'Dora,' and 'The Gardener's Daughter.' 
Polite as Spedding 's father was, it was probably with 
no great grief that he saw his two visitors take their 
departure in company with his son, at the end of May. 
The three repaired to Ambleside on Lake Winder- 
mere where two of them stayed a week. But though 
Wordsworth's home was in the immediate neighbor- 
hood, Tennyson could not be induced to visit him in 
spite of Spedding 's urgency. For that his invincible 
shyness stood in the way. His refusal he must have 
remembered with gratification in later years when 
visitors from all parts of the globe were knocking in 
season and out of season at his own doors. Tennyson, 
however, did come in contact with Hartley Coleridge 
who took to him mightily, and after the fourth 
' ' bottom ' ' of gin thanked the Lord for having brought 
them together. But he manifestly did not make any 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 355 

such favorable impression upon some of those he had 
left behind. If while he was at Mirehouse the sun, 
as Spedding tells us, did not display itself to advan- 
tage, neither apparently did Tennyson. According to 
his friend and host he was ''very gruff and unmanage- 
able.'" The contrast between the quietness and 
optimism of FitzGerald and the discontent with every- 
thing of his companion struck Spedding sharply. 
After the departure of his guests he wrote to Donne 
an account of the visit. Tennyson, he said, ''stayed 
three weeks, or it may be a month, but the sun did not 
shine to advantage, and it must be a very capable and 
effective sun that shall make his soul rejoice and say, 
'Ha! Ha! I am warm.' "- There was, however, a 
good deal to account for the depression under which 
Tennyson with his peculiar temperament then labored. 
During the whole of these ten years of silence the 
future must have looked to him far from bright. 
High appreciation there was for him in certain quar- 
ters ; but in general depreciation. It manifestly never 
occurred to him that this condition of things was due 
to his own neglect to publish the pieces which had 
excited the enthusiastic admiration of his comrades. 

It is another proof of the influence which Tennyson 
exerted over all with whom he came in contact during 
the early days before Ms genius was universally 
recognized that the same profound impression of his 
superiority which he had previously made upon the 
men of the Cambridge circle who surrounded him, he 

1 Hallam Tennyson 's ' Tennyson and his Friends, ' p. 403. 
2F. M. Brookfield's 'The Cambridge Apostles,' p. 267. 



356 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

made also upon FitzGerald. The latter recognized his 
new friend 's oddities and eccentricities ; he was amused 
by them. The poet was always subject to fits of 
despondency ; but it was during the years immediately 
following the death of Hallam that the burden of life 
seems to have weighed with peculiar heaviness upon 
his spirit. The feelings to which this gave rise did 
not affect, however, FitzGerald 's estimate of the man. 
"I will say no more of Tennyson," he wrote to a 
friend, ''than that the more I have seen of him, the 
more cause I have to think him great. His little 
humours and grumpinesses were so droll, that I was 
always laughing: and was often put in mind (strange 
to say) of my little unknown friend. Undine — I must 
however say, further, that I felt what Charles Lamb 
describes, a sense of depression at times from the 
overshadowing of a so much more lofty intellect than 
my own: this (though it may seem vain to say so) I 
never experienced before, though I have often been 
with much greater intellects: but I could not be mis- 
taken in the universality of his mind; and perhaps I 
have received some benefit in the now more distinct 
consciousness of my dwarfishness. "^ 

1 Letter to John Allen of May 23, 1835, in his Letters edited by W. A. 
Wright, Vol. I, p. 28. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 
1837-1842 

In April, 1835, Browning went to Moxon with his 
poem of 'Paracelsus.' Him he sought on account of 
his good name and fame with authors. That publisher 
had himself brought out a volume of verse. Conse- 
quently all poets with reputations to make either went 
to him of their own accord or were recommended to 
go by personal friends or by rival publishers. Nat- 
urally he had begun to grow weary of dealing in wares 
which so far from bringing in profit were attended 
with actual loss. Browning presented himself with 
a letter of introduction. No sooner was the letter read, 
Browning tells us, ''than the Moxonian visage lowered 
exceedingly thereat — the Moxonian accent grew dolo- 
rous thereupon." 'Artevelde,' he assured him, had 
not paid expenses by thirty-odd pounds. ' ' Tennyson's 
poetry is popular at Cambridge," he continued. His 
further remark, however, gave the impression that 
Cambridge was the only place where it was popular. 
"Of 800," he said, "which were printed of his last, 
some 300 only have gone off."^ Under the influence 
of these and other depressing facts, Moxon assured 
his visitor that it was doubtful if he would ever again 

1 Mrs. Orr 's ' Life and Letters of Robert Browning, ' Vol. I, p. 98. 



358 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

venture into a transaction so unprofitable as the 
publication of poetry. There was no money in it at 
all. Accordingly he begged to decline even the 
inspection of Browning's manuscript. 

Lapse of time did not cause even the leading pub- 
lisher of the poetry of the period to change his opinion. 
The indifference of the public to the highest form of 
literature continued for many years. As late as 1844 
the future Mrs. Browning wrote to a friend that in the 
eyes of all those who brought out books, dealing in 
poetry was nothing but a desperate speculation. A 
writer must have tried his public before he tries the 
publisher — that is, before he expects that individual, 
as a business man, to run any risk for him. This, too, 
was said after the success of the Tennyson volumes of 
1842 had been assured. Accordingly we can get some 
conception of what must have been Moxon's feelings 
in 1835. About two years and a third had gone by 
since the poems of 1832 had appeared, and only three 
hundred copies had been sold. No one in the book 
trade could afford to bring out the epics of Homer or 
the plays of Shakespeare with such returns on the 
investment. To the publisher it meant pecuniary loss ; 
to the author it was a petty number upon which to 
base any claim to reputation. There is no question 
indeed that during the whole period from 1830 to 
1842 — especially the earlier half of it — Tennyson was 
read by a comparatively small number and appreciated 
by a still smaller. Many seem to have been unaware 
of even the fact of his existence. To the student of 
contemporary critical literature during this period 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 359 

there is nothing more noticeable than the little knowl- 
edge exhibited of him, the little interest taken in him 
outside of a limited circle. Men whose very names the 
world has now been quite content to forget were made 
subjects of serious consideration and in some instances 
of fulsome eulogy in periodicals which then stood 
highest in public estimation. Yet in these organs of 
public opinion Tennyson's name was then mentioned 
but seldom; in some of them it was not mentioned at 
all. 

Two illustrations of his obscurity may be given, out 
of several which exist. During the fourth decade of 
the century the newly founded 'Fraser's Magazine' 
gave at intervals an account of the men of letters who 
were more or less in the public eye. Engravings of 
them accompanied the page of text describing them. 
The two together constituted what was called a 
* Gallery of Literary Portraits.' Naturally the most 
noted men of the time — such as Rogers, Moore, Scott, 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Campbell — found 
there a place. But necessarily men of a much lower 
grade of distinction were included. There was, 
furthermore, no particular partiality displayed in the 
selection made. If the magazine took in its special 
friends like Jerdan and Lockhart, it did not fail to 
extend its notice to some of its pet aversions. Noto- 
riety seems to have been the main reason for mention- 
ing certain authors. With its usual horse-play it even 
introduced persons who had no claim whatever to be 
mentioned at all. In the list is no small number of 
persons of whom the world knew little then and no 



360 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

longer remembers. But among the more than seventy 
men and women of whom it gave an account, laudatory 
or disparaging, the name of Tennyson does not occur. 

This state of ignorance continued indeed up to the 
eve of the appearance of the edition of 1842. How 
little Tennyson was known even then, one fact of no 
particular significance in itself shows clearly. In 
January of the year just mentioned, a volume of 
selections from poets of prominence or assumed 
prominence came out. It was entitled * Modern Poets 
of the Nineteenth Century.' In all forty-three names 
were represented. How wide-embracing and not over- 
particular was the drag-net may be inferred from the 
fact that the collection began with Gifford, whose verse 
was poorer, if possible, than his critical judgment. 
It ended with a selection from the writings of the 
unfortunate Lady Flora Hastings. But the collection 
strove to include specimens from the productions of 
all the poets of the period, the humblest as well as the 
highest, who had any claim whatever to recognition. 
It is significant of the gradual growing appreciation 
of the greatness of Keats that some of his work is 
given. But the name of Tennyson is absent just as he 
was about to take his place at the head of contemporary 
English poets. 

Yet in spite of the comparatively little sale of his 
poems and the little recognition he received, the repute 
in which Tennyson was held was increasing all these 
years very steadily, even if very slowly. Besides the 
intrinsic value of a writer's own work, the influences 
that operate upon his reputation, either to enhance it 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 361 

or to impair it, are usually too complex and manifold 
to justify labelling any particular one of them as a 
determining factor in bringing about the result. Still, 
great weight in extending Tennyson's fame must be 
accorded to the unhesitating belief in him and unhesi- 
tating support of him which came from his early 
associates at Cambridge University. The brilliant 
band which had there surrounded him, which had from 
the first admired him, which had hailed him as the 
coming poet when he had not yet attained his majority, 
never lost their faith in him during all these years of 
comparative neglect. The failure of his works to sell 
did not abate in the slightest their admiration and 
enthusiasm. Critical weighing in the scales they 
heeded not; critical disparagement inspired in them 
no other feeling than contempt. They were confident 
that the public would adopt their opinions, if once 
they could be permitted to share their knowledge. In 
season and out of season they unhesitatingly pro- 
claimed his greatness as a poet to the dwellers in a 
world most of whom were unconscious of his existence, 
and many of those who knew of it were disposed to be 
unbelievers and scoffers. 

Furthermore, the persons who made up this company 
of admirers comprised some of the choicest spirits of 
the age. Naturally they were themselves coming more 
and more to the front. In the effect wrought upon 
public opinion it is quality that counts more than 
numbers. Hence, as time went on, the estimate taken 
by these partisans of the poet could not be arrogantly 
set aside by the most pretentious of reviewers. The 



362 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

influence of the Cambridge men in particular extended 
to their successors at the university. They kept up 
in that institution the belief which they themselves 
had held. The exhibition of the loyalty to the poet 
there manifested had from the beginning irritated at 
times the professional critics to a point almost beyond 
endurance. There appears to have been a discussion 
in some Cambridge society, possibly the Union, on 
the question whether Tennyson was or was not a great 
poet. This took place, it must be kept in mind, before 
most of the productions were published by which he 
is now widely known. The report of this debate, as 
we shall see later, made Christopher North almost 
foam at the mouth. 

There was, however, a justification unknown to the 
general public for this attitude on the part of his 
admirers. To many of his old associates, if not to 
most of them, productions which were never to see the 
light till much later, were then shown. When at 
Cambridge his intimate friends had had the habit of 
taking his latest work and copying it out. The practice 
continued during the whole of the fourth decade. 
During this period these jjroductions passed from 
hand to hand among the chosen few. The criticism 
to which Tennyson had been subjected stood in the 
way of any willingness on his part to publish what 
he had composed ; but it did not prevent his composing. 
That went on uninterruptedly. Unhappily it went on 
too often without the agency of pen and ink. Tennyson 
composed a good deal without taking the pains to write 
it down. He kept it in his memory. It is a habit which 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 363 

lie seems to have maintained during much if not all 
of his life. The result of this dislike to the labor of 
writing was that he lost the recollection of many things 
in consequence of his delay in putting them on paper. 
Once he composed three hundred lines concerning 
Lancelot and his quest for the Sangreal. These he 
kept for some time in mind; but he neglected to keep 
them anywhere else. The result was that they all 
slipped from his memory before they came to be 
written down.^ 

Fortunately for him and for us, he frequently 
deviated from this practice. The poems which we 
know to have been written and to be passing from 
hand to hand in manuscript among his personal friends 
during the ten years' silence, make up no inconsider- 
able share of the second volume of the edition of 
1842, and ought to have been published long before. 
Furthermore, several of the pieces which were subse- 
quently to form a part of 'In Memoriam' had already 
been written during this early period. The sight of 
such productions not merely kept alive but increased 
the reputation of the poet in the circle of his private 
friends. Necessarily it could not and did not affect 
the opinion of the ignorant public. It was conse- 
quently inevitable that this belief in his greatness 
should not cause any perceptible addition to the sale 
of his writings. Neither the volume of 1830 nor that 
of 1832 ever went into a second edition. But as his 
early friends became themselves more conspicuous, 
the influence they wielded in his behalf became more 

1 'The Journals of Walter White/ p. 351. 



364 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

and more perceptible. In truth, it is manifest that 
in spite of the comparatively little circulation of his 
works he was assuming more and more a distinct 
position in the literature of his time. He was coming 
to have a body of recognized admirers distinct from 
his university associates. 

This fact began at last to dawn upon the minds of 
critics. Mill's remark in his review that Tennyson's 
poems were winning their way by slow approaches to 
a reputation the limits of which it would be just then 
hazardous to predict, is one of a number of observa- 
tions that show that the estimation in which he was 
held was gradually impressing itself upon the minds 
of men generally. Accordingly as time went on, 
though he was still under the shadow of earlier depre- 
ciation, there was manifested more and more of a 
disposition to treat him with respect. Even persons 
most disposed to dislike rarely ventured to condemn 
unqualifiedly. He was usually classed, to be sure, even 
bv those favorably inclined, with Sterling, Trench, and 
Alf ord of his own Cambridge set ; or with such respect- 
able veterans as Leigh Hunt or Barry Cornwall; or 
even with such wearisome nonentities as David Mac- 
beth Moir, who had grown up and flourished under 
the shelter of ' Blackwood 's Magazine. ' Of his immeas- 
urable superiority to each one of these or to all of 
them combined there was hardly a suspicion enter- 
tained by the critics of the day. To maintain that he 
occupied a really lofty position, that he gave promise 
of occupying a much loftier one, would have struck 
almost every one of even the most well-disposed of 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 365 

reviewers as a statement too extravagant to be 
admitted to the columns of any sanely conducted 
periodical. There were prominent critics whom an 
assertion of this sort would have filled with disgust. 
That he was a *'true" poet was the most favorable 
view. That he was a great poet none of them ever 
imagined. Still, it is to be conceded that his general 
superiority to his Cambridge contemporaries was 
admitted, though with no decided conviction that this 
was the genuine gospel. From some it occasionally 
met with dissent, sometimes violently, sometimes 
mildly expressed. 

This state of mind can be recognized in an incidental 
reference to Tennyson in ^The Edinburgh Review' for 
January, 1836. In it for the first time his name then 
appeared. During the fourth decade that periodical 
reviewed and sometimes reviewed favorably poets who 
are now known only to the literary antiquarian. It 
does not seem to have occurred to its editor that 
Tennyson was worth reviemng. In the number just 
specified was a criticism of Alford's 'The School of 
the Heart and Other Poems. ' The article is noticeable 
for its grudging admission of the slowly growing 
prominence of Tennyson's position. The reviewer 
conceded that he was now the ''most known of any 
of the young Cambridge poets who have lately taken 
wing." Still, it was implied, though not directly 
asserted, that impartial criticism was forced to point 
out his inferiority to Alford. This inferiority con- 
sisted in three things. Alford had the ability to choose 
his subjects from a higher class, to conceive them with 



366 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

greater distinctness, and to express his thought with 
more precision. But there was something worse 
behind. This the reviewer attempted sadly but man- 
fully to show. Tennyson, he said, ''must not set it 
down to aridity and moroseness, if persons of riper 
years have regretted that his style was not sufficiently 
impregnated with thought; — that more mind was not 
apparent behind his words." The remarks of the 
reviewer were manifestly those of one worthy of 
consideration ; for when it came to the display of lack 
of mind, his article was throughout the work of an 
expert. 

The publication in 1836 of 'St. Agnes' in 'The Keep- 
sake' for 1837, and of the 'Stanzas' in 'The Tribute' 
of the latter year, awakened intense enthusiasm in the 
admirers of the poet. Scant attention, however, com- 
paratively speaking, was paid to them by the large 
majority of the most prominent critical journals of 
the day. In the few instances in which they were 
mentioned, there is nothing more noticeable than the 
cautious attitude assumed by the reviewer about 
committing himself to unqualified laudation. Yet it 
is evident that both of these poems made a profound 
impression upon many who had hitherto been indif- 
ferent or hostile to the poet. The critic of 'The 
Athenaeum'^ was so struck by the 'St. Agnes' that in 
his notice of the Annual in which it appeared he 
printed it entire. He felt it, however, incumbent upon 
him to apologize for his admiration. Though the paper 
was pressed for space, he wrote, "we must, however, 

1 ' Athenaeum, ' November 5, 1836, p. 783, 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 367 

find room for a poem, by Mr. Alfred Tennyson, which, 
though it has much of the right convent spirit about 
it, is withal so perversely fantastic, that we extract 
it as much for its curiosity as its beauty. ' ' This criti- 
cism is extracted here not for its sense but for its 
curiosity. If there be any one epithet utterly inappro- 
priate to the poem in question, it is that of fantastic. 
No more in Tennyson's 'St. Agnes' than in that of 
Keats 's is there the least direct allusion to the particu- 
lar tale of fiction which does duty for the life of St. 
Agnes. The poem of Keats culminates in the flight of 
the heroine with the man she loves. In Tennyson's 
poem no feelings of this nature fill the heart of the 
maiden. No thought of earthly love is there suggested. 
Instead is depicted the aspiration of a saintly spirit 
that longs to be the bride of heaven, her eagerness to 
pass from a world of sin and sorrow to the purity of 
the celestial life. At the very beginning of the poem 
the maiden is represented as looking forward from the 
chill confines of her convent home to the habitation on 
high to become fit for which is her sole desire. At the 
very end is represented the ecstatic vision of the 
purified soul freed from the incumbrance of the flesh, 
and about to form an eternal union with the heavenly 
bridegroom. How perfect is the portrayal of the 
thoughts and feelings of the white-robed vestal, in 
whom the spiritual life has eradicated all soil of sense, 
no one needs now to be told. The epithet of fantastic 
could be applied to the poem only by one who had no 
comprehension of its inner meaning. 

There is more excuse for the attitude assumed by 



368 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the writer of the article on 'The Tribute' which 
appeared in 'The Edinburgh Review' for October, 
1837. The poem of Tennyson contained in it, picturing 
as it does the hallucination of the lover who has lost 
his bride, does not reveal its meaning after hasty 
reading. This is usually all that the hard-pressed 
critic is able to give. But in this instance, though he 
could not fully understand, he could in a measure 
appreciate. The beauty of the lines impressed him. 
In his article occurs the second of the two mentions 
of Tennyson which are found in that stately periodical 
before the publication of the edition of 1842. The first 
had found him lacking in thought. The second was to 
find him mysterious and obscure. Still, on the strength 
of the 'Stanzas' appearing in 'The Tribute,' the 
reviewer had got so far along as to be able to recognize 
Tennyson as a "true" poet. In this notice of 'The 
Tribute' we are told that it contains "a great deal of 
pleasing poetry" without "exhibiting any one speci- 
men of very marked genius or striking originality." 
There were quoted several of these "pleasing" pieces 
which are as little worth reading now as they were 
worth reading then. It ended, however, with citing a 
number of lines — fifty-eight in all — from the one poem 
which gives all the value it now possesses to the 
volume containing it. "We do not profess perfectly 
to understand," said the reviewer, "the somewhat 
mysterious contribution of Mr. Alfred Tennyson, 
entitled 'Stanzas'; but amidst some quaintness, and 
some occasional absurdities of expression, it is not 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 369 

difficult to detect the hand of a true poet."^ The 
occasional absurdities the critic unfortunately kept to 
himself ; no one since has been able to discover them. 

But perhaps the most significant testimony to the 
growth of Tennyson's reputation is the fact that in 
the latter part of this fourth decade he was beginning 
to have imitators. Most of the productions of this 
nature have disappeared from the memory of all men 
if they ever fixed themselves at all upon the minds 
of any. The existence of some of these asserted 
imitations was doubtless due to the fancy of the critic. 
Of this there is one noticeable instance. In the middle 
of 1836, th,e editorship of 'The Monthly Repository' — 
which there has been more than one occasion to men- 
tion — passed from Fox to Richard Hengist Home. 
After holding it for a year, he was succeeded in the 
position by Leigh Hunt. Under him the periodical 
maintained for some months a lingering life but at 
last gave up the ghost. To the first number that came 
out under his charge — that for July, 1837 — he con- 
tributed a poem called 'Blue-Stocking Revels, or the 
Feast of the Violets.' In the second of its three 
cantos, entitled 'The Presentation Ball,' came an 
account in alphabetical order of all the female writers 
of the day. In it the future Mrs. Browning was 
described in the following words : 

A young lady then, whom to miss were a caret 
In any verse-history, named, I think, Barrett, 
(I took her at first for a sister of Tennyson) 
Knelt, and received the god's kindliest benison. 
1 Vol. LXVI, p. 103. 



370 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

' ' Truly, ' ' said he, * ' dost thou share the blest power 

Poetic, the fragrance as well as the flower, 

The gift of conveying impressions unseen. 

And making the vaguest thoughts know what they mean. 

Only pray have a care, nor let Alfred beguile 

Admiration too far into manner and style ; 

Nor divide with the printer your claims to be read. 

By directing our faculties when to say ed. 

Such anxieties do both your geniuses wrong ; 

Tend to make things too verbal, the mind not so strong ; 

And besides, my dear, who has not read an old song. ' ' 

The matter of the whole poem is poor ; the expression 
of it is worse ; the asserted charge of imitation is worst. 
Miss Barrett naturally felt surprise and annoyance, 
and would have been justified in expressing resent- 
ment. Yet this same ridiculous charge of imitating 
Tennyson had been made before and continued to be 
made afterward. Some time after, she gave vent to her 
feelings of vexation at this utterly baseless charge in 
an undated letter, but pretty certainly belonging to 
1842 or 1843. ''As to Tennyson," she wrote, ''his 
admirer I am, and his imitator I am not as certainly. 
Nearly everything in 'The Seraphim' was written 
before I ever read one of his then published volumes ; 
and even the 'instructing the reader to say ed' was 
done on the pattern of Campbell's 'Theodoric,' and 
not from a later example."^ 

Peculiar critical obtuseness it required to charge 
Miss Barrett with being an imitator of Tennyson. 
Still, in that early period when the poet himself had 

1 ' Contemporary Eeview, ' Vol. XXIII, p. 454. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 371 

but little public recognition, there are testimonies 
sufficient to show that in the eyes of the men of the 
time a school of writers were consciously or uncon- 
sciously forming themselves upon him and adopting 
his manner and method. That surely was the opinion 
of critics. We may throw aside the testimony found 
in a review of the poems of John Clare which appeared 
in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for August, 1835. In it 
mention is made of *'the inferior followers of Shelley, 
Keates, Hunt, and Tennysson. " The remark carries 
little weight because it is manifest that the writer of 
the article was not too well acquainted with the better- 
known men of whom he was talking. There is far 
stronger evidence of the existence of a condition of 
things still little recognized by even well-read students 
of the poet and of the period. In October, 1838, Henry 
Taylor was engaged in correspondence with a young 
Oxford student who had consulted him about his 
career. The latter, in seeking for advice, had sent 
him some verses of his own composition. These 
Taylor of course told him had been read with much 
pleasure. That is something which the sender of 
verses is always told, if told anything at all. In this 
instance the assertion appears to have been sincere. 
**I should like to know something," wrote Taylor, 
''of your English poetical reading, whether it lies 
amongst the poets of the seventeenth century, or 
amongst the moderns, whether with those Musas 
severiores qui colunt, or with the lighter authors. 
Your 'Poet's Dirge' seems to savour a little of such 
reading as Fletcher's 'Faithful Shepherdess' in the 



372 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

better time of English poetry, or perhaps of Tennyson 
in the present day." 

This is one of several indications that Tennyson's 
influence was not only beginning to be felt but also to 
be recognized. Far more marked is the involuntary 
tribute paid about this time to the slowly increasing 
appreciation of his poetry in an incidental reference 
to him by his ancient detractor, 'The Quarterly 
Review.' It is found in the number for June, 1839. 
It occurs in a criticism of the volume entitled * Poems 
of Many Years,' by Richard Monckton Milnes. This 
work had come out in 1838. Were internal evidence 
of much value, one would say that the review must 
have been the work of John Wilson Croker.^ The 
sentiments expressed were certainly his sentiments. 
The attitude towards Milnes was partly favorable, 
partly unfavorable ; but it inclined more to the former 
than to the latter. A good deal of hope was expressed 
for his future. His volume, with all its faults, con- 
tained in the critic's opinion better English verse than 
had yet been published by any living writer, not yet 
on the wrong side of the mezzo del cammin. The 
'Edinburgh' had inferentially, as we have seen, placed 
Alford above Tennyson. The 'Quarterly' unhesi- 
tatingly placed Milnes higher. 

But the critic in the course of his article pointed out 
one danger which beset the author. Milnes, he 

1 The assertion has several times been made that this review was the 
work of Kinglake. In 'The Cambridge Apostles' (p. 237), it is declared 
further that Milnes was aware of the fact. The article, however, bears 
no possible resemblance to Kinglake 's style, and certainly conflicts with 
the opinions he expressed later. 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 373 

asserted, was meant by nature to be a poet. If he 
ultimately failed to secure the station to which he was 
entitled, he would have nothing to blame but his per- 
verse admiration for absurd models. One is naturally 
curious to know who these absurd models were that 
had harmfully kindled mistaken admiration. In 
another part of his article the critic gives us to 
understand who at least two of them were. ''We are 
quite sure," he wrote, ''that he [Milnes] will here- 
after obey one good precept in an otherwise doubtful 
decalogue — 

'Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;' 

and regret few sins of his youth more bitterly than 
the homage he has now rendered at the fantastic 
shrines of such baby idols as Mr. John Keats and 
Mr. Alfred Tennyson." In this disparaging opinion 
the 'Quarterly' was joined at this very time by the 
'Edinburgh.' In a review of the poetical works of 
Shelley which appeared in the latter periodical in July, 
1839,^ there occurs a reference to ' ' the unbearable cox- 
combry of the 'intense' and mystic school of versifiers 
who made him their model — including both the Shellites 
of the old connexion, and those of the new, or Tenny- 
sonites." In these two extracts we find expressed the 
dying throes of a criticism, which after vaunting itself 
exceedingly for a decade, hardly ventured a few years 
later to put forth its face; or if it did, was either 
contemptuously spurned or was too much despised 
to be even noticed. 

1 Vol. LXIX, p. 510. 



374 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

To go back to the private life of Tennyson during 
the second half of this ten years' period of silence. 
After their departure from Somersby in 1837, the 
family took up their residence at High Beech in Epping 
Forest. There for about three years they remained. 
As might be inferred from the name, the place was 
one of the highest points in the Forest. It was covered 
with magnificent beech trees and is also in close 
proximity to Waltham Abbey, whose bells are 
said to have inspired the Christmas canticle of *In 
Memoriam. ' The nearness of the new home to London 
enabled Tennyson to come into frequent contact with 
his old associates. It was the evening journey between 
his residence and the city which suggested to him the 
couplet of * Locksley Hall ' : 

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer 

drawn, 
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary 

dawn. 

He was naturally a frequent visitor to his intimate 
friend and unwavering admirer Spedding at his law- 
chambers in Lincoln's Inn. He became one of the 
members of the club meeting on Tuesday, established 
in 1838, which speedily took the name of its founder 
Sterling. There he inevitably saw many of his old 
friends and fellow students; for fully half of the 
original members had belonged to the Cambridge 
Apostles. It was for him in all probability a nominal 
membership rather than an active one. For much 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 375 

participation in the debates his shyness would stand 
in the way. 

In 1840 the family removed to Tunbridge Wells in 
Kent. Thither they had been ordered by a London 
physician, who said it was the only place in England 
for persons with their constitutions. It turned out an 
unfortunate choice. The house chosen was too small 
for comfort. The place itself was in Tennyson's eyes 
an abomination. According to his statement, it was 
not long before they were half -killed by the tenuity of 
the atmosphere and the presence of steel more or less 
in earth, air, and water. There is nothing peculiar 
in this particular belief. Most of us are disposed to 
find detrimental to health the air of any place where 
we do not care to dwell. With these feelings about 
Tunbridge, whether well founded or more likely purely 
imaginary, it was naturally not a spot where they 
cared to remain permanently. In the autumn of 1841, 
the family removed to Boxley near Maidstone. One 
main reason for the choice of this new abode was its 
proximity to Park House, the home of the Lushingtons, 
one of whom married the following year a sister of 
the poet. In all these changes of residence while 
Tennyson remained regularly with the family, he made 
frequent excursions over the country, though doubtless 
far fewer than he desired. Through all his early 
career there are references in the correspondence of 
the period to his changing plans, to his scheme of 
going somewhere, he hardly knew where, and ending 
up with going nowhere, like many of us who start out 
with the idea of visiting the ends of the earth but 



376 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

consider ourselves at last fortunate if we can succeed 
in getting into the nearest country and sometimes into 
the next county. 

More than once Tennyson is represented as planning 
a trip to some place of importance and finally landing 
in some place which no one had ever heard of, or if 
heard of, had never cared to see. The failure of many 
of these projected trips was in all probability due not 
so much to change of intention as to lack of means. 
In an undated letter belonging somewhere in this 
period, Spedding referred to the uncertain movements 
of his friend. '* Alfred Tennyson," he wrote, '^has 
reappeared, and is going to-day or to-morrow to 
Florence, or to Killarney, or to Madeira, or to some 
place where some ship is going — he does not know 
where. He has been on a visit to a madhouse (not as 
a patient), and has been delighted with the mad people, 
whom he reports as the most agreeable and the most 
reasonable persons he has met with. The keeper is 
Dr. Allen . . . with whom he has been greatly taken. ' ' 
If this be the Dr. Allen who subsequently induced him 
to engage in a speculative enterprise, he had ample 
reason to regret his visit to the madhouse, in the 
pecuniary trouble and mental distress which beset 
him in the early forties. 

It must not, however, be fancied that aimless 
wandering characterized at any time the life of Tenny- 
son. He was in truth one of the hardest of students, 
and systematically devoted himself to the acquisition 
of knowledge in many different fields. Several of 
these might be considered as lying outside the peculiar 



THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 377 

province of a poet. He not merely learned modern 
languages and made himself familiar with their litera- 
tures, but he devoted time and attention to the study 
of the natural sciences. To botany, geology, and 
astronomy he paid special attention both then and 
in later life. But as is to be expected, while we hear 
of his journeys or intended journeys in the corre- 
spondence of the period, little reference is made to the 
studies he was pursuing while at home, whether it was 
at Somersby or High Beech, or at Boxley, where the 
family remained for a while before their removal to 
Cheltenham. It was while residing at Boxley that 
Tennyson broke finally the silence of years by once 
more appearing in print. As the publication of the 
poems of 1842 marks the turning-point in his career, 
it demands fulness of consideration of the circum- 
stances attending its production as well as of the 
nature of its reception by the public. It demands it 
all the more because erroneous statements have been 
made and still continue to be occasionally made upon 
both these points. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE POEMS OF 1842 

As the fifth decade of the century opened, the inti- 
mate personal friends of Tennyson had become some- 
what impatient to have him appear once more in 
print. Their faith in him, fed as it was by the perusal 
of unpublished poems, had steadily waxed more 
intense. Those permitted to read these productions 
deplored his continued silence. Outside too of his 
associates there were plenty of men ready to encour- 
age him who stood far higher in ability than any single 
one of his detractors. Walter Savage Landor heard 
read from manuscript in December, 1837, the poem 
of 'The Passing of Arthur,' which when published 
appeared under the title of 'Morte d 'Arthur.' In a 
letter of that year he said of it that '*it is more 
Homeric than any poem of our time, and rivals some 
of the noblest parts of the Odyssea."^ 

But no suggestions, no entreaties of any sort could 
induce Tennyson to publish. At the bottom of this 
decision was mainly his excessive sensitiveness to 
criticism and the rough treatment to which his previous 
volume had been subjected. In addition to this he 
shared in the general belief that the times were 

1 John Forster 's * Walter Savage Landor, ' 1869, p. 509. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 379 

unpropitious to the publication of poetry. There was 
no sale for it, at least for that kind of it which was 
of a high grade. There was accordingly little induce- 
ment for the author to submit himself to the tender 
mercies of a public which did not care to read what 
he wrote, or if by any chance it did read, was inclined 
to judge it harshly. There was nothing peculiar to 
Tennyson himself in this state of mind beyond the 
intensity of the feeling with which he held it. All the 
writers of that period shared in it more or less. 
Milnes, for example, wrote in March, 1837, to Aubrey 
de Vere of the hesitation he felt about publishing his 
poems. He was not at all disposed to bring them out 
till he had made them as perfect as lay in his power. 
*'I am too old," he said, ''to produce them as youthful 
exercises, so that they will have to come forward on 
their own merits without excuse or veil; hence the 
assiduous correction of them by judgment and expe- 
rience is imperative ; and when the world is such that 
Alfred Tennyson does not think it worth while to 
write down his compositions, there need be no rash 
eagerness on my part."^ In a later letter to the same 
friend he referred again to this characteristic of the 
poet. "Tennyson," he wrote, "composes every day, 
but nothing will persuade him to print, or even write 
it down."^ 

The pressure upon him to publish became more 
insistent after the appearance of the two poems which 
came out in 'The Keepsake' and 'The Tribute.* "Do 

1 ' Life and Letters of Eichard Monckton Milnes, ' Vol. I, p. 194. 
2 Ihid., Vol. I, p. 220. 



380 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

you ever see Tennyson," wrote Trench to Milnes in 
March, 1838, ''and if so, could you not urge him to 
take the field? I think with the exception of myself 
and him, everybody sent to 'The Tribute' the poorest, 
or nearly the poorest, things they had by them. But 
I suppose that as it was only for a charity, it did not 
much signify. His poem was magnificent.'" These 
observations could hardly have been altogether grati- 
fying to Trench's correspondent, who had himself 
been largely instrumental in procuring pieces for the 
collection. In it, too, four of his own had appeared. 
Still the correctness of the criticism no one is now 
likely to question. But the urgent appeal of Trench, 
if it ever reached Tennyson, had no effect upon his 
resolution. Feeble as we now know were the real 
reasons for his silence, there was in his own mind 
what would appear a plausible justification for his 
course. He was well aware that he was little regarded 
outside of a comparatively small circle. Though this 
circle had been steadily enlarging, nevertheless it still 
remained small. Most of the men of the English- 
speaking world had never heard of him ; most of those 
who had heard, had been content to accept the con- 
temptuous estimate expressed of him years before by 
'The Quarterly Review.' His two published pieces, 
so warmly admired by those who read them, were read 
after all by a far from large number. For men 
generally they were largely lost to sight in the jungle 
of poetical weeds by which they were surrounded. 
Nor even in the circle of his immediate friends had the 

1 E. M. Milnes 's 'Life and Letters,' Vol. I, p. 208. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 381 

first of these two contributions met always with warm 
recognition. The poem of 'St. Agnes,' Sterling was 
not disposed to admire. "I had heard much more of 
it," he wrote to Trench, ''than I think it deserves. 
The great merit, as usual with him, is his eye for the 
picturesque. An iced saint is certainly much better 
than an iced cream, but not much better than a frosted 
tree. The original Agnes is worth twenty of her."^ 
It is clear from this very shallow comment, in which 
a comparison is made between Tennyson's poem and 
the totally dissimilar one of Keats, that Sterling had 
no comprehension of the piece or of what it was 
intended to illustrate. His remarks are only of 
importance because they show that his attention had 
been called to it by the impression which it had made 
upon others and by the admiration which it had excited. 
It was not unnatural therefore that Tennyson should 
remain unconvinced of the desirability of publication. 
However much personal friends might exalt him, he 
was well aware that he was really but little known. 
There was clearly no eagerness on the part of the 
general public to read what he had already published. 
What evidence was there that they would welcome 
what he might further choose to publish? During the 
years which had gone by since his two ventures, there 
was not sufficient demand for his poetry — at least the 
demand was not urgent enough — to render it advisable 
to bring out a second edition of either volume. In this 
respect his fortunes may be said to resemble those 
of Keats. What was true of his poetic predecessor 

1 R. C. Trench's 'Letters and Memorials,' Vol. I, p. 220. 



382 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was to some extent true of himself. It is right to add 
also that the admirers of the one were largely the 
admirers of the other. Indeed the resemblance of the 
two men in their fortunes was indicated in a letter 
written in September, 1841, by the same John Sterling 
who had been dissatisfied with the poem in ' The Keep- 
sake.' "Lately," he wrote to Trench, "I have been 
reading again some of Alfred Tennyson's second 
volume, and with profound admiration of his truly 
lyric and idyllic genius. There seems to me to have 
been more epic power in Keats — that fiery, beautiful 
meteor. But they are two most true and great poets. 
When one thinks of the amount of recognition they 
have received, one may well bless God that poetry is 
in itself strength and joy,, whether it be crowned by 
all mankind or left alone in its own magic hermitage. ' ' 
These words might fairly be taken as justifying the 
resolution of Tennyson not to appear. They certainly 
convey the impression that the public as a whole was 
indifferent to the merits of both himself and of Keats, 
or rather ignorant of their existence. In truth the 
little sale of their works was later given as having 
had the effect of increasing their reputation. This 
extraordinary view was taken in a criticism of the 
volumes of 1842 which was as hostile as it dared to 
be. *^ Until only very recently," remarked 'The 
Literary Gazette,' ''it was difficult to obtain either the 
poems by John Keats or Alfred Tennyson; and the 
scarcity of their works has been the means of adding 
greatly to the reputation of the authors; they have 
been more inquired after than read, and their names 



THE POEMS OF 1842 383 

better known than their poems.'" The profound dis- 
covery that the inability to secure an author's works 
contributes to the spread of his fame could have come 
only from the editor of the journal in which the criti- 
cism appeared. It bears the stamp of Jerdan himself. 
There is no doubt, however, that at the beginning 
of the fifth decade of the century, it was coming to 
be difficult to procure Tennyson's poems. The number 
of copies printed had not been large in the first 
instance. During the years which had passed this 
number had been well-nigh exhausted. Yet it is 
doubtful if the scarcity of the volumes, combined with 
the urgency of friends and admirers, would have been 
of avail to break the poet's policy of silence, had not 
another agency now come forward to force him to 
action. Pressure for publication showed itself from 
a quarter he could hardly have anticipated. The 
information was conveyed to him in 1841 that his 
poems were to be reprinted in America. That project 
was not entirely new. As far back as January, 1838, 
a highly appreciative notice of his writings had 
appeared at Boston in *The Christian Examiner.' 
This was a quarterly review with then a good deal 
of reputation as the organ of the Unitarian body. 
The author of the article was John Sullivan Dwight, 
originally a clergyman, subsequently a member of the 
Brook Farm community, and later known as a musical 
critic of authority. It may have been in consequence 
of this review that a reprint in this country of Tenny- 
son's two volumes came to be under consideration that 

1' Literary Gazette' for November 19, 1842, p. 788. 



384 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

same year. Whether due to the disinclination of the 
publisher on second thought to risk the venture, or to 
the remonstrance of Tennyson himself, the under- 
taking, if seriously contemplated, was not carried out 
at that time. But in this instance it was evident from 
the communication sent that there was to be no falter- 
ing. The news was hardly agreeable. There was a 
pretty large number of his earlier pieces which Tenny- 
son had no desire to have brought again to the 
attention of the public. The faults in many of them 
and the futility of some of them he had long before 
come to see more clearly than the most venomous of 
his critics. Naturally the prospect of their reappear- 
ance did not please him. But what could he do? 

It is a proof of the steady advance which had been 
silently going on in Tennyson's reputation that trans- 
atlantic eyes had for some time begun to look upon his 
poems as fit subjects for reprint. Even in England 
the number of copies issued were showing themselves 
inadequate to meet the demand, slowly growing as it 
had been. Mrs. Browning tells us in a letter of 
September, 1842, that though she had the volume of 
1832, she had been unable to procure that of 1830, 
having inquired for it vainly.^ But if his poems were 
becoming scarce in England, it was practically impos- 
sible to procure them in America. His admirers in 
this country, whatever their number, were no longer 
disposed to rest content with copies of single pieces 
or with fragmentary extracts. Hence came from them 
this ominous reminder of what was in store for him, 

1* Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,' Vol. I, p. 109. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 385 

if lie neglected any longer to make a renewed appear- 
ance before the public. The pressure was of a kind 
against which he could make no effective resistance. 
The land of the free, as he complained, felt itself free 
to help itself to his writings, and to reprint them for 
him, if he were indisposed to take that course on his 
own responsibility. For it was distinctly, though 
delicately, intimated that if he himself took no action, 
action would be taken for him. 

So much has been said and justly said against the 
book-pirate, and of the wrongs inflicted by him upon 
authors, that it is well to put on record the few services 
to literature which he has rendered. He occasionally 
took the place of posterity and did its work. The 
pressure he put upon the reluctant writer has been 
sometimes beneficial. It was certainly so in this 
instance. Tennyson might have held out against the 
entreaties of his friends. But against the menace of 
this new peril he was helpless to protect himself by 
inaction. ''You bore me about my book," he wrote 
to FitzGerald some time in 1841; *'so does a letter 
just received from America, threatening, tho' in the 
civilest terms, that, if I will not publish in England, 
they will do it for me in that land of freemen."^ In 
contemplating the reproduction of much of his early 
verse with which he had come to be dissatisfied, he 
might well add as he did, **I may curse, knowing what 
they will bring forth. But I don't care." The action 
he was led to take showed however that he did care. 
Something had to be done in order to stop the trans- 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 178. 



386 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

atlantic republication of his earlier volumes, some of 
which would doubtless triumph over the vigilance 
of the custom house and find their way into English 
hands. At this very time copies of Macaulay's essays, 
collected and printed in America, were stealing into 
Great Britain in such numbers as to force the reluctant 
author to bring them out early in 1843 in a revised 
form. So in this case what the urgency of friends 
could not accomplish, the pressure of the book-pirate 
did. The prospect roused Tennyson from his inaction. 
Groaning in spirit and doubtless with a good deal of 
inward imprecation and certainly of inward trepida- 
tion, he resolved to try his fortunes once more with 
the public. 

It may be added that Lowell took some credit to 
himself for bringing about this result. The fact is 
made known to us in a letter of his to Duyckinck, then 
editor of the short-lived literary periodical entitled 
'Arcturus.' It bears the date of December 5, 1841. 
In this letter, Lowell told his correspondent that 
Tennyson was to bring out ' ' a new and correct edition 
of his poems." While he did not wish to state the 
authority for the assertion, he assured him that it 
could be relied upon, for it came from the author 
himself. ' ' I have the great satisfaction, ' ' he continued, 
''of thinking that the publication is in some measure 
owing to myself, for it was by my means he was 
written to about it, and he says that 'his American 
friends' are the chief cause of his reprinting."^ 
Accordingly an announcement appeared in the literary 

1 H. E. Scudder 's ' James Eussell Lowell, ' Vol. I, pp. 96-97, 



THE POEMS OF 1842 387 

notices of 'Arcturus' for the following February to 
the effect that "it is understood that Moxon, the 
London publisher, is about to issue a new edition of 
the poems of Alfred Tennyson, undertaken by the 
author, we believe, at the solicitation of his American 
friends and readers." The word here italicized so 
appears in the periodical. The exact feelings of 
Tennyson towards his American friends may be 
guessed but need not be stated. Still, as it turned out, 
he had far more reason to rejoice in their interference 
than to regret it. 

The decision to publish was unquestionably a sur- 
prise to most and probably to nearly all of his English 
admirers. When at last the news spread about in 
the latter part of 1841 that Tennyson was about *Ho 
take the field," as Trench expressed it, the statement 
was received by many with amazement that amounted 
almost to incredulity. In a postscript to a letter 
written in October of this same year by FitzGerald 
to Frederick Tennyson, he communicated to the poet's 
brother the astounding information. *'Just heard 
from Edgeworth, ' ' he said, ' ' that Alfred is in London 
'busy preparing for the press' ! ! !" Three exclamation 
points, it was felt by the writer, were necessary to 
indicate adequately the wonder of it. On the part of 
the author himself we are certain that he took the 
action he did with few anticipations of success and 
with many misgivings as to failure. It is suggestive, 
however, of the extreme care that Tennyson inva- 
riably employed to perfect his work that in this 
instance, as in so many others, he resorted to the 



388 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

precaution of printing a few copies of some of the 
poems for private examination before offering them 
to the public. A book of several hundred pages 
preceded the publication of the edition of 1842. 
It contained eight of his pieces in blank verse — 
' Morte d 'Arthur, ' ' Dora, ' ' The Gardener 's Daughter, ' 
'Audley Court,' 'Walking to the Mail,' 'St. Simeon 
Stylites,' 'Ulysses,' and 'Godiva.' It is hardly neces- 
sary to add that these were scattered through the 
second volume of the edition of 1842. 

Now that we know the results of this venture we 
can observe with curiosity, if not with wonder, the 
anxiety about its success which beset both the author 
and his friends. The almost universal belief that 
there was no market for poetry of a high order is 
brought out constantly in the correspondence of the 
period. Equally appears at intervals Tennyson's 
peculiar sensitiveness to criticism and his dread of it. 
Early in 1842, while his work was in preparation for 
the press, he was a good deal dispirited by the 
departure from England of the one friend upon whom 
he had relied to come to his support from expected 
attack. This was Spedding, who had gone to America 
as secretary to Lord Ashburton, dispatched thither 
to negotiate the settlement of the northeastern bound- 
ary of the United States. Spedding, he knew, not 
only sympathized with him but believed in him fully. 
Naturally he was downhearted at an absence whose 
length could not be foretold. "Some fop," he wrote 
to his future brother-in-law, Lushington, "will get the 



THE POEMS OF 1842 389 

start of him in the Ed. Review where he promised to 
put an article, and I have had abuse enough. ' '^ 

That Tennyson himself should have feared failure 
after his previous experience was not unnatural. But 
the same little anticipation of his acceptance by the 
world at large and consequently of the limited sale 
of his poetical works was exhibited by his warmest 
admirers. It continued too for some time after the 
volumes of 1842 had come out. It was very much in 
evidence while the business of getting them ready for 
publication was going on. No one was a fuller 
believer in the man and the poet than FitzGerald. 
He was indeed no blind worshipper. On the contrary 
he was wont to amuse himself with Spedding's 
uncompromising partisanship. Yet while confident in 
the ultimate success of the work, it is manifest that 
at the outset he had little expectation of its immediate 
popularity. ''Alfred," he wrote to Frederick Tenny- 
son in March, 1842, '4s busy preparing a new volume 
for the press : full of doubts, troubles, &c. The review- 
ers will doubtless be at him : and with justice for many 
things: but some of the poems will outlive the 
reviewers."- This is so far from being a glowing, it 
is rather a gloomy prediction of immortality; but it 
manifestly expressed the feeling which prevailed then 
in the inner circle of the poet's friends. It cannot be 
said that it augured hopeful anticipations of success. 

The printing of the work was at last completed. 
On May 14, 1842, London papers contained the foUow- 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 180. 

2 FitzGerald 's ' Letters and Literary Kemains, ' Vol. I, p. 94. 



390 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ing advertisement: ''Just Published. Tennyson's 
Poems in two volumes." This was the simple 
announcement of the venture, made without the 
slightest preliminary puffing or the slightest attempt 
of any sort to arrest the popular attention. It turned 
out in time that neither had been needed, though the 
appearance in 1842 of numerous poetical rivals might 
seem of itself to render the prospects of this particular 
work precarious. That year saw the publication of 
volumes of verse by veteran poets whose very names 
might fairly be expected to challenge the attention of 
the public. In March had come out Campbell's 'Pil- 
grim of Glencoe,' and in April Wordsworth's 'Poems 
of Early and Late Years,' including the drama of 
' The Borderers. ' Both of these, it is creditable to the 
sense of the public, had as little success as if their 
authors had been utterly unknown to fame. Early, 
too, in July, Leigh Hunt brought out 'The Palfrey, a 
Love-Story of Old Times.' 

These were the work of the veterans. But this same 
year saw also the publication of poems by men of the 
younger generation who had already established 
greater or less claim to popular recognition. Bulwer 
diversified his production of novels by making one of 
his occasional ventures into poetry with the tale of 
'Eva.' Henry Taylor, having recovered from the 
shock of the success of 'Philip Van Artevelde,' had 
come forward with his third play, the historical drama 
of 'Edwin the Fair.' Early in the year. Trench pub- 
lished a volume bearing the title of 'Poems from 
Eastern Sources: The Steadfast Prince, and other 



THE POEMS OF 1842 391 

Poems.' Towards its close he came out again with 
a volume entitled 'Genoveva.' Eobert Browning in 
his series of * Bells and Pomegranates' brought to the 
attention of a world now become unheedful, his drama 
of 'King Victor and King Charles,' and later, what 
was of far more importance, his 'Dramatic Lyrics.' 
Even our old friend, the now forgotten Eobert Mont- 
gomery — who as regards the sale of his works had been 
far the most successful writer of verse of the fourth 
decade just so long as he continued to write it — turned 
momentarily aside from the equally successful business 
of preaching, and produced a ponderous poem entitled 
'Luther. ' This he besought Carlyle to review. Though 
Carlyle refused to criticise this "rhymed rigmarole," 
as he termed it — the rigmarole chanced to be in blank 
verse — the public did not refuse to buy. The work 
appeared late in February; early in May it went into 
a second edition, and a third came out in 1843, and a 
fourth in 1846. But the great success of the year was 
Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Eome.' The volume 
appeared in October. It at once gained a popularity 
which it has never since lost. Altogether 1842 was 
remarkable for its number of poetical ventures. In 
the general assault which was made then upon the 
attention of the public from so many sources of 
interest, the year is to us now mainly memorable for 
the production of the two volumes of Tennyson's 
poems. 

Before describing the reception which these two 
volumes met, it is desirable to say something of their 
contents. The second was made up of matter hitherto 



392 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

imprinted with the exception of the poem of *St. 
Agnes,' and the three stanzas entitled 'The Sleeping 
Beauty, ' which came now to serve as the nucleus about 
which was built up ' The Day Dream. ' On the contrary, 
the first consisted mainly of pieces which had appeared 
in the previous volumes of 1830 and 1832. Of the 
fifty-six poems which were found in the former, the 
majority were discarded. In those which were retained 
very few alterations were made. Not so of the volume 
of 1832. Of thirty poems which there appeared, most 
of the important ones were selected to be included in 
the new edition. With the exception of the one 
entitled ' Hesperides ' and two of the feminine portraits, 
'Rosalind' and 'Kate,' those retained embrace all that 
were of any length without saying anything whatever 
as to their quality. But to this same first volume were 
added seven poems hitherto unprinted. They were 
entitled 'Lady Clara Vere de Vere,' 'The Blackbird,' 
the conclusion of 'The May Queen,' and the three 
pieces dealing with the development of English liberty, 
which bore respectively as their first lines: "You 
ask me, why, though ill at ease, " "Of old sat Freedom 
on the heights," and "Love thou thy land, with love 
far-bought." Finally there was added the poem 
entitled 'The Goose.' It would have been no loss to 
the volume had this never appeared. With one 
exception the composition of the seven belonged to 
the year 1833. 

It was the changes made in the selections taken from 
the 'Poems' of 1832 which constituted the most 
distinctive feature of this first volume. That changes 



THE POEMS OF 1842 393 

should be made by Tennyson was inevitable. As 
regards their methods of composition poets divide 
themselves into two broadly distinct classes. In the 
members of the first, the conceptions are struck out 
at a heat. They find at once adequate expression, or 
at all events such expression as the writer is either 
unable or indisposed to modify materially. They 
come forth perfect in his eyes or near enough per- 
fection to prevent his bestowing upon them any 
further care. Now and then one word may eventually 
be substituted for another, now and then a line or 
a passage may be remodelled. But beyond this chance 
attention to details there is no serious effort put forth 
to alter the original form to any extent worth consid- 
ering. To use an outworn comparison, Minerva has 
sprung full-panoplied from the head of Jove. It is 
consequently felt to be a work of supererogation to 
make any change in her armor. On the other hand, 
with poets of the second class the expression is built 
up elaborately. It is by slow degrees that the pile 
reaches the perfection aimed at. The glow that 
illuminates their pages is not due to lightning flashes 
of inspiration. It is the result of steady and prolonged 
blaze. Poets of this order are not necessarily either 
greater or lesser literary artists than those belonging 
to the other; but they are distinctly more conscious. 
Nor is there justification for claiming superiority 
for the procedure employed by the poets of either one 
of these two classes. In the instance of each the 
method is followed by the writer which is for him the 
most suitable for embodying effectually in verse what 



394 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

he seeks to say. Furthermore, while these classes 
have in general a broad line of demarcation, it does 
not follow that the division between them extends 
invariably to particulars. The writer of the one class 
occasionally invades the province of the other. Those 
of the first sometimes, though not often, employ, at 
least for short pieces or passages, the slowly elabo- 
rating processes of the second. More frequently the 
poets of this second class produce in a moment of 
inspiration some piece, in which so far as they are 
concerned, no further change is felt to be feasible or 
desirable. Furthermore there are poets who seem to 
belong sometimes to one of these classes and some- 
times to the other. It is only a broad general division 
that is outlined here ; it will never hold true of all its 
details. 

Of this second class of writers whose poetic product 
is the result of elaborate workmanship, Tennyson is 
certainly a conspicuous representative. The fact was 
made very evident in the contents of this first volume 
of the 'Poems' of 1842. Some of the pieces retained 
from the volume of 1832 were indeed left unchanged. 
But alterations there were in others of them on the 
most extensive scale. This was particularly noticeable 
in Parts I and IV of ' The Lady of Shalott, ' in ' Mariana 
in the South,' in 'The Miller's Daughter, in 'CEnone,' 
in ' The Palace of Art, ' in ' The Dream of Fair Women, ' 
and in the choric song of 'The Lotos-Eaters.' No 
student of Tennyson's writings needs to be told that 
these are the most important poems of the volume of 
1832. The changes they individually underwent form 



THE POEMS OF 1842 395 

in consequence a curious study in the methods employed 
by the poet to perfect his work. Stanzas were omitted, 
stanzas were added. In certain instances the changes 
were so numerous and on so grand a scale that the 
sum of them amounted almost to recasting the whole 
poem or some particular part of it. 

Great was the outcry that arose in consequence in 
many quarters. The desirability of any of these 
alterations was doubted by several even of the poet's 
warmest admirers. By some of them vehement protest 
was made. It was certainly very hard for those who 
had become familiar with the lines as they had origi- 
nally appeared, to accept any change whatever. This 
is a feeling which must always be taken into consid- 
eration in any criticism made by those of us to whom 
the first form of a poem is the form by which we have 
learned to love it. In such cases we are hardly 
competent judges of the propriety or excellence of 
the alterations made. Our ears have been attuned by 
time and custom to the flow of certain words in a 
certain order. Anything which disturbs this melody 
which has become part of our mental equipment is apt 
to jar painfully upon the literary sense. The old 
associations have been broken up. The new ones have 
not only to be created — itself a work of time — but they 
must displace from remembrance and regard the old 
ones to which our ears have become accustomed. The 
music in which we delighted is lost, and we have little 
inclination to adapt ourselves to any new tune, even 
if judges, recognized by us as competent and impartial, 
should proclaim its superiority ; and in such cases the 



396 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

only impartial judges are those who come to the con- 
sideration of the two versions without having been 
previously familiar with either. 

It was accordingly inevitable that many should be 
grieved by the changes made, who were far from 
unfriendly to the poet. Two of these criticisms are 
worth noting coming from the persons they did. In 
January, 1844, an article on Tennyson *s two volumes 
appeared in the * Democratic Review' published in 
New York. It was the production of Fanny Kemble 
Butler. Of Tennyson, as we have seen, she had been 
one of the most extravagant of the original admirers. 
As the poet was an intimate friend of her brother, 
John Mitchell Kemble, not only literary taste but 
family feeling would tend to make her a partisan. 
Naturally there was no restraint in the expression of 
her admiration for the genius which had been dis- 
played in the new poems appearing then for the first 
time. But along with this went unhesitating condem- 
nation of the alterations which had been made in the 
old ones. **He has changed," she wrote, "and in our 
opinion has very nearly ruined some of his best early 
poems, at the same time that he puts forth new ones 
incomparably superior to those at their unaltered 
best." She regarded this retrograde and progressive 
process, as she called it, the most singular mental 
phenomenon in the range of modern literature. All 
the alterations were in her eyes alterations for the 
worse. She was unable, for instance, to speak with 
patience of the changes made in one of the songs 
found in 'The Miller's Daughter.' The verses, she 



THE POEMS OF 1842 397 

thought only tolerable as they stood originally; as 
they now appeared, they were unmitigated twaddle. 

It is a singular illustration of the force of association 
working in a person of superior intellect and of 
refibied taste that preference could be given by Fanny 
Kemble to the conclusion of the choric song in 'The 
Lotos-Eaters,' as found in the old version, to the far 
more effective and poetical lines which were found 
in the new. The most virulent critic of Tennyson never 
exhibited much more pronounced evidence of incom- 
petence than did here this enthusiastic admirer. Later 
in life she admitted that the changes she deplored did 
not appear deplorable to others, but distinct improve- 
ments. It is manifest that in regard to the excellence 
of the alterations made she had come to find herself 
in a hopeless minority. Her work entitled 'Records 
of a Girlhood' was published in 1878. In it she 
repeated her previous opinion in regard to these 
changes, or rather the feelings she had once had about 
them. But she further confessed that what had 
seemed to her desecrations did not seem so to the 
modern reader. ''In justice to Tennyson," she said, 
"I must add that the present generation of his readers 
swear by their version of his poems as we did by ours, 
for the same reason, — they knew it first. ' ' 

As being more open to fair difference of opinion, 
it may be worth while to set side by side the two 
versions of the song in 'The Miller's Daughter,' 
partly to show in small space something of the nature 
and extent of the changes made by the poet and partly 



398 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to give the reader an opportunity to decide for himself 
on their respective merits : 

Edition of 1832 

I wish I were her earring, 

Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek, 

(So might my shadow tremble 
Over her downy cheek,) 

Hid in her hair, all day and night. 

Touching her neck so warm and white. 

I wish I were the girdle 

Buckled about her dainty waist, 

That her heart might beat against me, 
In sorrow and in rest. 

I should know well if it beat right, 

I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 

I wish I were her necklace. 

So might I ever fall and rise 
Upon her balmy bosom 

With her laughter, or her sighs. 
I would lie round so warm and light 
I would not be unclasped at night. 



Edition of 1842 

It is the miller's daughter. 

And she is grown so dear, so dear, 

That I would be the jewel 
That trembles at her ear ; 

For hid in ringlets day and night, 

I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 399 

And I would be the girdle 

About her dainty, dainty waist, 
And her heart would beat against me, 

In sorrow and in rest : 
And I should know if it beat right, 

I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 

And I would be the necklace. 

And all day long to fall and rise 
Upon her balmy bosom, 

With her laughter or her sighs, 
And I would lie so light, so light, 

I scarce should be unclasp 'd at night.^ 

The other criticism came from an even more famous 
quarter. In a letter of July 13, 1842, Browning gave 
to Alfred Domett his opinion of the changes which 
had been made in this first volume, as well as of some 

1 In an article in ' The New London Literary Gazette ' of August 25, 
1827, on specimens of the early Greek poets, there is an English poem 
"formed from two or three fragments not inserted in the epigrams of 
Meleager. " "I have endeavored," says the author of the article, "to 
give a specimen of a style of love-song so common among the Greek 
lyric poets." Then follow these verses: 

I wish I were the bowl, 

The bowl that she kisses, 
I would breathe away my soul 

In the goblet of blisses. 

I wish I were a flower. 

Or the dove which sings 
In the evening bower 

With sunset on her wings. 

For if I were a flower, 

I should sleep upon her breast; 
And if I were a dove, 

I would sing her to her rest. 

And lovely her slumbers. 

And sweet her dream should be, 

And beautiful her waking. 
If watched by me. 



400 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of the poems contained in the second. *'I send with 
this," he wrote, ''Tennyson's new vol., and, alas, the 
old with it — that is, what he calls old. You will see, 
and groan! The alterations are insane. Whatever 
is touched is spoiled. There is some woeful infirmity 
in the man — he was months buried in correcting the 
press of the last volume, and in that time began spoil- 
ing the new poems (in proof) as hard as he could. 
'Locksley Hall' is shorn of two or three couplets. I 
will copy out from the book of somebody who luckily 
transcribed from the proof-sheet — meantime one line, 
you will see, I have restored — see and wonder ! I have 
been with Moxon this morning, who tells me that 
he is miserably thin-skinned, sensitive to criticism 
(foolish criticism), wishes to see no notices that 
contain the least possible depreciatory expressions — 
poor fellow! But how good when good he is — that 
noble 'Locksley Hall,' for instance — and 'St. Simeon 
Stylites' — which I think perfect. ... To think that 
he has omitted the musical 'Forget-me-not' song, and 
'The Hesperides' — and the 'Deserted House' — and 
'everything that is his,' as distinguished from what 
is everybody's."^ 

To men who have made themselves familiar with 
the changes which are found in these poems, it is not 
Tennyson's alterations that will seem insane but 
Browning's criticism. But these remarks of his render 
it a matter of moment to correct the error on this point 
into which he fell at this time as well as later. It is 
one, too, into which friends as well as enemies of the 

1 ' Browning and Domett, ' edited by F. G. Kenyon, 1906, p. 40. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 401 

poet have been betrayed. Never assuredly was an 
author more sensitive to critical attack than was 
Tennyson, so far as his feelings were concerned. 
Never was one more independent of it in his action. 
The only maker of it to whose judgment he paid much 
heed was himself. Suggestions from friendly quarters 
he sometimes sought. Even those unsought he fully 
considered. But there is no evidence that anything, 
whether coming from favorable or unfavorable 
sources, determined, save in occasional instances, 
his own conclusions. On the contrary, the evidence 
is overwhelming that it did not. He sometimes looked 
with a sort of perverse fondness upon poems which 
his warmest admirers regarded with extreme disfavor. 
Not merely in spite of the attacks of the hostile, but 
against the remonstrances of the friendly he persisted 
in publishing and republishing pieces which it would 
have been to his credit to have dropped entirely. 
Hostile criticism had no perceptible effect in dictating 
the omissions or alterations which were found in the 
edition of 1842. The poems appearing in. his first two 
ventures which he failed to republish there would have 
been thrown out in any case. For his feelings about 
some of those contained in the volume of 1830 we have 
at an early period the unimpeachable testimony of his 
most intimate friend. ''They little know the while," 
wrote Hallam, after "Wilson's review in 'Blackwood,' 
' ' that you despise the false parts of your volume quite 
as vehemently as your censors can, and with purer zeal, 
because with better knowledge."^ 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 84. 



402 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 

But the opposite impression has been so long preva- 
lent that it has become prevailing. The view indicated 
by it has been so stoutly held and so persistently 
proclaimed that the mere assertion of its falsity will 
seem to most men like a denial of the self-evident. 
Accordingly it becomes important to make a critical 
inquiry into the matter and to bring out the facts too 
unmistakably to admit of further question. This can 
be best done by an exposure of two representative 
misstatements of Tennyson's course, coming as these 
do from sources more than ordinarily authoritative. 
It will show beyond question that, however much the 
poet 's feelings were outraged by attack, his action was 
never influenced by it. The first of these misstate- 
ments is found in the biography of Professor Wilson 
written by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon. In it occurs 
a comment upon the review in 'Blackwood' of Tenny- 
son's first volume. ''The young poet," wrote Mrs. 
Gordon, "although evidently nettled, received the 
criticism in good part. ' ' Whatever the daughter may 
have thought, the father, it will be seen later, did not 
deem that his criticism had been taken in good part, 
and still less did he take in good part the retort. 
Mrs. Gordon adds that the poet profited by the review. 
"On reading the paper," she wrote, "I observe that, 
with scarcely a single exception, the verses condemned 
by the critic were omitted or altered in after editions." 

The remark does little credit to Mrs. Gordon's keen- 
ness of observation. Undoubtedly a number of poems 
which Wilson condemned were omitted from the 
edition of 1842. So also were a far larger number 



THE POEMS OF 1842 403 

of whicli lie had expressed no opinion whatever. But 
not to the critic's praise or dispraise was this action 
of the poet attributable. In truth the omissions which 
Mrs. Gordon could not find and the alterations which 
she did find must be credited to imperfect examination 
or to imagination working under no restraint of fact. 
To dispose effectively of her assertions, it is the easiest 
course to take a brief journey to the dreary realm of 
statistics. The volume of 1830, reviewed by Wilson, 
contained precisely fifty-six pieces. Of these, twenty- 
four were reprinted in the edition of 1842. Conse- 
quently thirty-two were discarded. Of the fifty-six 
poems of this first volume Wilson had specifically 
mentioned thirty. Of the thirty specified, he had 
condemned eighteen, and had commended twelve. Of 
the eighteen censured six Avere reprinted in the edition 
of 1842. These were 'The Dying Swan' and the two 
songs to 'The Owl'; 'The Poet's Mind,' characterized 
by the critic as "partly prettyish but mainly silly"; 
' The Merman, ' " a sorry affair ' ' ; and ' The Mermaid, ' 
"of an amorous temperament, and a strong Anti- 
Malthusian." 

All of these, the harsh language employed by Wilson 
did not prevent Tennyson from reprinting; and if 
there are any alterations to be found in them, Mrs. 
Gordon 's eyes are the only ones which have discovered 
them. There was indeed an omission of six lines in 
'The Poet's Mind,' but the dropping of these was 
manifestly not caused by the criticism; for that was 
directed to the whole piece and not to any particular 
portion of it. Of the poems which Wilson commended 



404 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

two were not included in the edition of 1842. One of 
these indeed, — ' Hero to Leander ' — was never reprinted 
in any authorized collection of Tennyson's works. 
Furthermore, it is to be added that of the twenty-six 
poems which Wilson did not mention either for praise 
or blame, nineteen were thrown out by the author's 
own decision. These statements are dry ; but they are 
convincing. They show that in the choice of the poems 
he determined to discard or to retain, Tennyson made 
up his own mind independently. It is manifest from 
his course in this as in later acts that he paid little 
deference to the mind of his critics. In stating the 
facts just recorded there is no expression of opinion 
as to the justice of Wilson's views. They are given 
merely to point out their ineffectiveness in influencing 
the action of the poet. 

The next is a far more flagrant instance of misstate- 
ment, for it lacks even the semblance of truth. It 
occurs in a letter written in February, 1845, by Brown- 
ing to the woman later to become his wife. He was 
engaged in his favorite exercise of proclaiming his 
own independence of criticism. "For Keats and 
Tennyson," he wrote, '*to 'go softly all their days' 
for a gruff word or two is quite inexplicable to me, 
and always has been. Tennyson reads the Quarterly 
and does as they bid him, with the most solemn face 
in the world — out goes this, in goes that, all is changed 
and ranged. Oh me!" Well might he have said 
''Oh me!"; for had he taken the pains to make even 
a superficial examination of the article in the 'Quar- 
terly' and the poems as republished he would have 



THE POEMS OP 1842 405 

discovered that his assertion lacked even that decent 
homage to fact which characterizes respectable fiction. 
It sprang largely from his own inability to correct 
anything which he himself had once written, and the 
fancy he came to have in consequence that corrections 
made by others arose out of deference to the opinions 
of critics and not to the decisions of their own judg- 
ments which these writers had independently reached. 
There is indeed palliation, though not pardon, for 
Browning's misstatement in an even then prevalent 
belief that Tennyson paid profound respect to Lock- 
hart's criticisms and modified his poems so as to 
conform to them. This belief began early and flour- 
ishes even to this day with all the vigor which 
characterizes mendacity once started on its travels. 
It has been repeated again and again by writers both 
of good and of ill repute ; by writers who were hostile 
to Tennyson, and by those who have been among his 
warmest admirers. Take two of the latter class. As 
early as 1845 Charles Astor Bristed, in a highly favor- 
able criticism of the volumes of 1842, repeated this 
utterly baseless statement in speaking of the article 
in the 'Quarterly.'^ ''The harsh censure," he said, 
**was to him wholesome advice, which he has used 
to good purpose. Of all the passages assailed by the 
reviewer, there is but one which has not been either 
entirely expunged or carefully rewritten." This one 
was a line in 'The Dream of Fair Women' in the 
description of Iphigenia. Similar testimony was borne 

1 ' Knickerbocker Magazine,' June, 1845, Vol. XXV, p. 536. 



406 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

by Andrew Lang as late as 1897.^ ''The illustrious 
poet," he wrote, "unlike any other poet known to 
history, altered the passages which gave such advan- 
tages to criticism." It will speedily be shown that 
the illustrious poet did nothing of the kind. 

Unquestionably in the edition of 1842 many changes 
had been made in those of its poems which had 
appeared in the volume of 1832. Not only had there 
been omissions and additions ; but in several of them 
alterations had taken place on a grand scale. Some 
of the pieces which Lockhart had attacked were with- 
drawn. Far more were withdrawn of which nothing 
whatever had been said. The action Tennyson took 
was not due to the dissatisfaction expressed by his 
reviewer with what he had done, but was due to his 
own dissatisfaction with it. No one was a severer 
critic of his own writings than he was himself. But 
in this particular case the question that concerns us 
is how far the changes made in the poems republished 
were due to Lockhart 's criticism. To that of course 
could not be attributed the numerous additions which 
are found. To settle the dispute as to the omissions 
and alterations, we have again to betake ourselves to 
statistics. Let us consider first those which were not 
reprinted. Of the thirty poems contained in the 
edition of 1832, sixteen appeared in the edition of 1842. 
Fourteen consequently were discarded. Five of the 
discarded had been attacked by Lockhart ; of the other 
nine he had made no mention. Of these five censured 
by him two would certainly have never appeared under 

lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol. II, p. 88. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 407 

any circumstances in any edition brought out by 
Tennyson under Ms own supervision. One of these 
consisted of the lines to Christopher North, of which 
we know that he himself had become ashamed almost 
as soon as they were published. The other was the 

* Darling Room, ' of which every admirer of the poet 
was then more or less ashamed. 

Of the other three attacked by Lockhart and dis- 
carded by Tennyson, one was the sonnet with which 
the book opened. As the poet in the edition of 1842 
did not include any of the sonnets contained in the 
volume of 1832 — there were six in all — it is hardly 
reasonable to infer that the omission of this particular 
one was due to the criticism passed upon it in the 

* Quarterly. ' Another one of the discarded poems was 
the verses addressed to an unknown friend beginning 
*'A11 good things have not kept aloof." The third 
was the poem entitled ' The Hesperides ' — the only one 
of any length not included in the edition of 1842. In 
fact this piece never appeared in any edition of Tenny- 
son 's works during his lifetime. But besides these 
five discarded by the poet there were eight others 
attacked by Lockhart which were retained. These 
eight were 'The Lady of Shalott,' 'Mariana in the 
South,' 'Eleanore,' 'The Miller's Daughter,' 'GEnone,' 
' The Palace of Art, ' ' The Dream of Fair Women, ' and 
'The Lotos-Eaters.' The very titles of these pieces 
singled out for reprobation by Lockhart will give the 
modern reader a conception of the taste and acumen 
displayed by the critic. 

Still, it may be and has been urged that while they 



408 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

were not discarded, their character was so changed 
in consequence of the criticism they received that the 
effectiveness if not the justice of the attack was proved 
by the action taken by the poet. It accordingly becomes 
necessary here to explode this fiction also. Let us 
consider separately each of the eight poems condemned. 
'Eleanore' and 'Mariana in the South' had been passed 
by Lockhart with censure merely, but with no detailed 
criticism. This was done, he assured us, because he 
"could make no intelligible extract." 'Eleanore' 
appeared in the edition of 1842 with the slightest 
possible alteration. The poem, accordingly, was left 
in its original unintelligibility. On the other hand, 
'Mariana in the South' underwent very marked 
changes. The opening stanza, as the poem originally 
appeared, was struck out and another substituted. 
The fifth and sixth stanzas of the piece as it now 
stands were added. Furthermore in the body of the 
poem many important alterations were made. Still, 
as in the case of this piece nothing had been specified 
by Lockhart, nothing done to it in the way of omission, 
addition, or alteration in particulars can well be 
attributed to any remark of his. The same sort of 
examination, applied to 'The Lady of Shalott,' 
specifically criticised by him, will show a similar 
result. The words and phrases in it which had been 
marked for censure — in some instances most foolishly 
marked — were rarely changed at all. It is further 
safe to say that none were changed because they had 
been so marked. There were in the extracts he quoted 
eleven of these words and phrases which Lockhart 



THE POEMS OF 1842 409 

had italicized for the sake of holding them up to 
ridicule. Of these eleven, nine were retained, two 
were altered. 

Essentially the same story can be told about 'The 
Miller's Daughter.' In this the changes were very 
numerous and very great throughout. For one of the 
songs contained in it — 'The Forget-me-not' song 
deplored by Browning — an entirely different one was 
substituted. The opening stanza of the poem was 
dropped as were three others. These stanzas were 
all which Lockhart had ridiculed. Even of two of 
these four it would be more proper to say that they 
were condensed rather than omitted; and with the 
condensation certain words and phrases italicized by 
the critic were thrown out. Among these lines he had 
censured were the following two: 

The very air about the door 

Made misty with the floating meal. 

What fault could be found which should cause them 
to be placed in italics in the review, it is hard for the 
modern reader to discover. It is giving too much 
credit to Tennyson's susceptibility to attack, extreme 
as it was, to fancy that he was led to discard them 
in consequence of the absurd criticism to which they 
had been subjected. But beside the four stanzas 
rejected, four others were cut out of which noth- 
ing had been said. Three others also were added. 
Furthermore, many were the minor changes made, 
which nothing in Lockhart 's review had suggested. 
Men who concede that Tennyson did not pay much 



410 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

heed to Lockhart's criticism generally have, however, 
been found disposed to insist that in the case of 
' (Enone ' he did. This poem was so thoroughly revised 
and recast for the edition of 1842 that it was to some 
extent a new work. From it, as it originally appeared, 
Lockhart quoted twenty-six lines for ridicule. Of 
these twenty-six, eight disappeared in the revision. 
Eighteen were retained unaltered. In these eighteen 
retained could be found eight words and phrases which 
had been specifically selected for censure by being 
printed in italics. In not one of them was the slightest 
alteration made. But there was one peculiarity of 
the poem with which the critic had made himself 
especially merry. This was the formula, repeated 
again and again with slight variations: 

Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 

Lockhart took pains to satisfy himself about the 
frequency of the occurrence of this line by counting 
it, whenever it appeared. Sixteen times he found it 
repeated. The fact he emphasized by italicizing the 
numeral. If he had taken the additional pains to 
count it correctly, his heart would have been further 
gladdened by finding that it did not occur sixteen times 
but seventeen. Bad as the smaller number was in 
Lockhart's eyes, Tennyson showed the abjectness of 
his deference to the critic by repeating the line nine- 
teen times in the revision of 1842. 

An examination of the three remaining poems — 
'The Lotos-Eaters,' 'The Palace of Art,' and 'The 
Dream of Fair Women' — reveals a similar state of 



THE POEMS OF 1842 411 

things. All these had been derisively mentioned by 
Lockhart ; but the extracts from them were few. ' The 
Palace of Art' was thoroughly recast in the edition 
of 1842. Not merely were there in it numerous minor 
changes, but omissions, additions, and transpositions 
took place on a grand scale. In truth, over thirty 
stanzas of the poem, as it originally appeared, were 
discarded, and nearly the same number added. One 
is here a little puzzled by Lockhart 's calling attention 
to the spelling Petrarca in one of the two quotations 
taken from this poem. He must surely have known 
that this was the name the poet bore in his own tongue. 
But if so, why italicize, as he did, the form? 'The 
Dream of Fair Women' also underwent great changes 
of all sorts though not so great as the preceding poem. 
But in all of these pieces not a single alteration can 
be traced even with probability, still less with cer- 
tainty, to anything found in the review in the 'Quar- 
terly.' Tennyson, in truth, could hardly have shown 
more distinctly his opinion of Lockhart 's opinion, or 
rather his contempt for it, than by his treatment of 
the words and phrases on which his critic had sought 
to cast discredit by italicizing them. These were 
almost invariably retained even when occurring in 
poems in which numerous alterations of all sorts had 
been made. 

Furthermore, phrases or passages which had under- 
gone something more than the criticism conveyed by 
italics, which had indeed been made the subject of 
special banter, were left entirely unchanged. Two 
instances there are in the last two poems considered, 



412 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

on which Lockhart laid special stress. He devoted a 
paragraph to the ridicule of the phrase ''babe in arm," 
which occurred in the description of the Madonna in 
'The Palace of Art.' This he compared to "lance in 
rest," "sword in arm," and spoke of it ironically as 
' ' a deep stroke of art. ' ' The respect which Tennyson 
showed to this criticism may be inferred from the fact 
that it not only occurred in the original edition but is 
found in every edition since down to the day of his 
death. Furthermore, he repeated it in ' The Princess. '^ 
Another illustration of the influence of the reviewer 
upon the poet can be seen in the remark made by the 
former upon the sacrifice of Iphigenia and in the 
action taken by the latter. Lockhart quoted from ' The 
Dream of Fair Women' the four lines following, in 
which certain changes were made by him in the 
punctuation to accentuate the ironic interpretation of 
them by the reviewer. 

The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat; 

The temples, and the people, and the shore; 
One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat — 

Slowly, — and nothing more. 

"What touching simplicity — " was Lockhart 's con- 
cluding comment on the extract — "what pathetic 
resignation — he cut my throat — ^nothing moref One 
might indeed ask, 'what more' she would have?" Yet 
in spite of this criticism the stanza, as it appeared in 
the edition of 1832, reappeared unaltered in the edition 
of 1842 and in every edition after that until the edition 

1 Canto VI, line 15. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 413 

of 1853. Other instances might be cited. Though 
less significant in themselves, they constitute collect- 
ively an instructive comment on the accuracy of 
Browning's assertion that ''in goes this, out goes 
that, all is changed and ranged" at the bidding of 
the 'Quarterly.' 

Undoubtedly Tennyson, like every other author, 
made alterations at the suggestion of friends or in 
consequence of the criticism of enemies. At times 
too they were unfortunate. In the poem of 'Lady 
Clara Vere de Vere' the first line of the couplet, as it 
originally read, ran as follows: 

The grand old gardener and his wife 
Smile at the claims of long descent. 

This was changed in very late editions to the hope- 
lessly prosaic line. 

The gardener Adam and his wife. 

The alteration was made, we are told, "because of the 
frequent letters from friends asking me for expla- 
nation." Poetry will be in a sorry state if it is to 
be revised to adapt it to the comprehension of the 
unthinking and unintelligent. It was surely hardly 
worth while to change a fine line into a feeble one 
to accommodate the ignorance of men who had not 
heard of the garden of Eden. Still such instances 
are very rare. Enough has been shown to prove 
beyond question that Tennyson was not influenced in 
the alterations he made by hostile criticism, however 
keenly he felt it. 



414 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

It is also easy to establish beyond cavil the truth 
of the further assertion that he was uninfluenced 
by friendly criticism when it came in conflict with 
the conclusions of his own judgment. We have 
seen that he discarded the poem of 'The Lover's 
Tale' from the volume of 1832, despite the entreaties 
of the one friend to whom he was most attached 
and in whose opinions he had the highest confidence. 
Both Hallam, and Thompson, the future Master of 
Trinity, remonstrated strongly as well as wisely 
against the epithet of ''madman" applied to Bona- 
parte in the sonnet so entitled. For it they wished 
him to substitute "dreamer." But their wishes and 
their objections had no weight with the poet and 
"madman" was retained. The sonnet was dropped 
from the edition of 1842, and was not reprinted by 
him until 1872. It had little merit and represented 
mainly what Mill termed the vulgar pride of nation- 
ality in which Tennyson was always too much inclined 
to indulge. Again, while John Stuart Mill's review 
of his poems had paid the most cordial of tributes 
to the genius of their author, he had not hesitated to 
condemn several of the individual pieces as positive 
or comparative failures. Those censured numbered 
seventeen in all, though most of them were very short. 
When the edition of 1842 appeared six of the seventeen 
censured continued to be retained. 

It is to be said in conclusion that no inconsiderable 
number of the early pieces not included in the volumes 
of 1842, were subsequently inserted by Tennyson in 
later editions of the poems or in his collected works. 



THE POEMS OF 1842 415 

Still, there was more than a score of these rejected 
pieces that he himself never reprinted. What the 
reasons were in individual cases which led to their 
inclusion or exclusion it is no easy matter to deter- 
mine. Certain it is that several of those he refused 
to republish will seem to most men not inferior to 
many of those to which he gave the preference and 
in one or two cases distinctly superior. There were 
men among his early admirers who did not take kindly 
to his rejection of 'The Hesperides' from the edition 
of 1842. Yet in his refusal to reprint it he adhered 
all his life. It is far harder to understand the failure, 
already mentioned, to include the poem entitled 'Hero 
to Leander. ' The following is its first stanza : 

Oh go not yet, my love, 

The night is dark and vast; 
The white moon is hid in her heaven above, 

And the waves climb high and fast. 
Oh! kiss me, kiss me, once again, 

Lest thy kiss should be the last. 

Oh kiss me ere we part; 

Grow closer to my heart. 
My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main. 

This is undoubtedly the best of the four stanzas 
constituting the poem ; but the others are good enough 
to make the whole production one of distinctly higher 
grade than several he admitted later into his collected 
works. 



CHAPTER XVI 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 

Of the somewhat remarkable number of poetical 
works which came out in 1842, it has already been 
observed that the two volumes of Tennyson are to us 
the most memorable. It is now frequently said that 
they placed him at the head of contemporary English 
poets. So far as their ultimate effect is concerned, 
the assertion is correct. But in some quarters the 
mistaken belief has sprung up that this result was 
accomplished at once. Specifically it is true of the 
effect then wrought upon a limited number, and that 
number, too, belonging to the highest class of minds. 
But it was not so universally. The growth of Tenny- 
son's acceptance by the public can be easily gauged 
by the difference between the enormous number of 
copies of the editions printed in the fifties to meet 
the enormous demand which had come to prevail, and 
the comparatively small number printed in the forties, 
especially in the early forties. In the latter case the 
sale was respectable as poetry sold then; but it was 
by no means remarkable. The first edition of the 
'Poems' of 1842 consisted of but eight hundred copies. 
To exhaust this number took more than a year. We 
can get a fair conception of the modesty of the antici- 
pations entertained by the poet himself from the fact 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 417 

that nearly four months after the publication, he was 
communicating to a friend with a certain degree of 
exultation that he had been told at Moxon's that five 
hundred copies of his poems had been sold/ That 
evidently seemed to him a great success. The second 
edition which appeared in the middle of June, 1843, 
advanced the number over that previously printed to 
one thousand. 

But though the constituency behind Tennyson was 
not at first large in numbers, so far as that is indicated 
by the sale of his works, it was remarkable both for 
its character and its intellect. To it belonged espe- 
cially the young men of promise whose opinions were 
to be the opinions of the immediate future. One 
condition of things soon revealed itself which was to 
be repeated again and again in his literary career. 
The truth of Aristotle 's dictum that the mass of men — 
he meant of course men cultivated and competent to 
form opinions of their own — were far better judges 
of poetry than any one man however eminent, has 
never been better illustrated than in the reception 
given to Tennyson's successive works. The critical 
estimate almost invariably lagged behind the estimate 
reached by the great body of intelligent readers. 
When the former was adverse — and in his case it often 
was adverse on the first publication of particular 
works — it was almost disdainfully set aside by the 
latter. Never was this fact brought out much more 
distinctly than in the instance of the 'Poems' of 1842 
and *The Princess' of 1847. Professional criticism 

1 Letter of September 8, 1842, in 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 212, 



418 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

followed and followed reluctantly, and almost protest- 
ingly, popular appreciation. Tennyson's reputation 
advanced against a sullen opposition which insinuated 
a depreciatory estimate which at last it did not venture 
to proclaim openly. 

It cannot be made too strongly emphatic that the 
success which Tennyson achieved during his whole 
career was never achieved by the aid of professional 
critics. It was the spontaneous tribute paid by 
intelligent and independent readers. In 1842 the 
reviewer of poetry hesitated; not so the lover of it. 
There is nothing more striking in the history of 
Victorian literature than the masterly manner in which 
the leading critical organs of that particular time, and 
even for years later, refrained from committing them- 
selves too unreservedly as to the nature and degree 
of Tennyson's poetical achievement. They seemed 
at first dazed by the apparition of this luminary, which, 
so long in obscuration, had suddenly blazed in the 
literary heavens as a star of the first magnitude. 
There were none who expected to deal in unmixed 
praise. There were some prepared to scoff and ready 
to prove that the light by which a few erring souls 
appeared to be dazzled was a mere meteoric exhalation 
which would speedily vanish from view. But it soon 
became apparent that the temper of the educated 
public was such as to make an action of this sort 
perilous. Never was the critical fraternity more at a 
loss as to what they should say, or rather what it was 
safe for them to say. It took the large majority of 
them a good deal of time to make up their minds what 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 419 

to do. They were really waiting for public opinion 
to declare itself unmistakably; they themselves did 
not attempt to lead it. This refusal on their part to 
commit themselves unreservedly was remarked at the 
time by Fanny Kemble in the review, already men- 
tioned, which she wrote of the edition of 1842 for an 
American periodical. ''The public," she said, ''has 
been quicker than the reviewers in appreciating Mr. 
Tennyson's merits." 

Only two of the leading critical weeklies paid any 
speedy attention to the work. The first to review it 
was 'The Examiner.' Its notice^ appeared about a 
fortnight after the publication of the volumes. It was 
undoubtedly written by its literary editor, John 
Forster. His article was in general commendatory, 
and indeed might fairly be called cordial. Still it 
exhibited none of that enthusiasm of appreciation or 
rather of panegyric which he had previously bestowed 
upon Browning. But though somewhat colorless, it 
was discriminating; it praised what was worthy of 
praise and its censure was given to pieces which 
deserved censure. About a week later followed in 
'The Spectator' the only other early notice of the 
work in a periodical of importance. It was manifestly 
too early for the reviewer to gain any acquaintance 
with the volumes he set out to criticise. He labored 
under the impression that the poems contained in 
them were little more than a reprint of what appeared 
before. "These elegant little volumes," he said, 

1 ' Examiner, ' May 28, 1842. 



420 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

** whose contents at first sight appear to be original, 
are discerned on examination to be a corrected, 
revised, and enlarged edition of the author's Poems." 
Such was the opening sentence in which he recorded 
this notable discovery. Still he felt that in spite of 
the lack of novelty, poetry was not so rife in the land 
that the appearance of the work should be allowed to 
pass in silence. The opinions of a critic who, not 
content with the possession of ignorance, started out 
with the proclamation of it, were not likely to be 
marked by any originality of treatment. Naturally 
he rehashed the stale comment on the two previous 
volumes which had long come to serve as a means for 
saving the reviewer from the necessity of using his 
own brains. But as one of apparently only two critics 
who has reckoned ' The Skipping Rope ' among Tenny- 
son 's better pieces, his notice deserves full recognition. 
''Among the elite of the volumes," he wrote, ''may 
be reckoned most of the poems in the nature of ballads 
or pastorals — for Tennyson is strongest upon old or 
rustic English grounds ; a few of the lighter personal 
poems, as The Skipping Rope, and some not reducible 
to any class, as The Talking Oak. The gem of the 
whole for variety, delicate perception of character, 
rustic grace, spirit and pathos, is the pastoral tale 
embraced in The May Queen and its two sequels. ' ' 

These two notices remained for a long time the only 
ones which appeared in any periodical of distinct 
repute. There was for a while indeed a somewhat 
ominous silence in most of the leading organs of 
critical opinion. "As to Alfred's book," wrote Fitz- 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 421 

Gerald to Frederick Tennyson on the sixteenth of 
August, ' ' I believe it has sold well : but I have not seen 
him for a long while, and have had no means of hearing 
about the matter except from Thompson, who told me 
that very many copies had been sold at Cambridge, 
which indeed will be the chief market for them. 
Neither have I seen any notice of them in print except 
that in the Examiner; and that seemed so quiet that 
I scarce supposed it was by Forster."^ This was 
written, as is seen, three months after the publication 
of the poems. Even then one of the warmest admirers 
of the author fancied that the chief market for them 
would be in Cambridge. It is clear that at that period 
no expectation was entertained of the success which 
the work was to have. This feeling existed, too, in 
spite of the fact that individual poems even then were 
gaining wide currency through the agency of the 
newspaper press. 

Cambridge, however, failed to fulfil FitzGerald's 
prophecy of continuing to be the chief market for the 
sale of the poems. It shows indeed how far from 
general had been Tennyson's previous repute that 
he was hardly known at all at the sister university 
during the ten years of silence. Bradley, the dean 
of Westminster, tells us that previous to the publica- 
tion of the edition of 1842, the men of whom they 
talked at Oxford were Keble, Shelley, Byron, and 
Wordsworth.^ But all this was speedily reversed 
after the appearance of the Tennyson volumes. It 

1 'Letters and Literary Eemains' of Edward FitzGerald, Vol. I, p. 98. 
2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 206. 



422 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was mainly his poetry that then came up for consid- 
eration and discussion. It took the university by 
storm. The change was significant of the sentiment 
prevailing everywhere among the young and highly 
educated. They celebrated Tennyson in season and 
out of season not as the great coming poet but as 
the poet who had come. The fervency of admiration 
expressed by them — it is largely reflected in the 
correspondence of the period, so far as it has been 
published — ^was in striking contrast to the frequently 
indifferent, usually patronizing, and occasionally 
hostile attitude of the critical press. Against the 
cool tone of the reviews was the ardent appreciation 
of the general public. That indeed had found out the 
greatness of the poet long before it dawned upon the 
consciousness of its self -constituted literary advisers. 
Men in general who did not feel that they had any 
reputation at stake for critical perspicacity expressed 
their admiration unhesitatingly and enthusiastically. 
Single poems from the work and extracts of poems 
were circulating far and wide. Hence they were early 
made known to the reading public out of all propor- 
tion to the sale of the work itself. The praise of 
critics was little needed; their blame was certainly 
little regarded. Even before FitzGerald had written 
the letter just quoted, another one of the periodicals, 
with a reputation to take care of, had mustered up 
sufficient courage to express a measured approbation 
without danger of destroying its own reputation for 
discriminating sobriety of judgment. 

This periodical was ' The Athenaeum. ' On August 6, 



EECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 423 

a review of the work appeared in its columns. It was 
favorable on the whole, though the critic was careful 
to maintain a proper decorum by not expressing any- 
wild enthusiasm. It expressed the usual regret at the 
interpolations and alterations which had been made 
in the contents of the previous volumes and at the 
omission of certain poems which they had contained. 
It would, it declared, have retained the lines to 
Christopher North in spite of their pertness and the 
* Darling Room' in spite of its puerility rather than 
have lost 'The Deserted House.' It was obliged 
further to dissent from the opinion of those who 
praised the poet as having emancipated himself from 
the crotchets which distinguished his earlier efforts. 
His newer offerings supplied as many as those he had 
expunged. This was doubtless aimed at the notice in 
'The Examiner.' With the other likes and dislikes 
conveyed in the article, it is not worth while to dally. 
The general conclusion is all that needs to be given. 
With the various critical abatements to Tennyson's 
genius which the reviewer's strict sense of justice 
compelled him to make, he nevertheless felt justified 
in asserting that the extracts from the volumes sub- 
stantiated the writer's claim to a high place among 
modern poets. To a high place among modern poets 
was the result reached by this thoughtful critic after 
three months of time and apparently of some moments 
of reflection. Incidentally however he made one most 
significant admission. Everything which he had said, 
he remarked, had been already anticipated. His work 
was largely one of supererogation; he could do no 



424 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

more than furnish additional evidence. ** Though we 
are late in noticing Mr. Tennyson's new volume," he 
observed, ''neither critics, readers, nor author will 
suffer from our delay or self-denial. Large as have 
been the quotations of our contemporaries, they have 
left still a treasury unrifled!" But the reason given 
for one of his omissions is noticeable as showing how 
rapidly popular appreciation had outrun critical. 
Not a line was quoted from 'Locksley Hall' and one 
or two other poems. That course was avowedly taken 
on the ground that they were already familiar to 
every one. 

The critic of 'The Athenaeum' was Chorley.^ The 
review in the other literary weekly — 'The Literary 
Gazette,' now fully entered upon its downward road — ■ 
did not appear until the nineteenth of November. It 
had taken it six months to make up what it deemed 
its mind. Six minutes would have been ample for the 
result it reached. This review must be described as 
not only ridiculous in itself — that might be expected 
from our knowledge of the editor, who in this case 
was very certainly the writer of the criticism — ^but as 
being under the circumstances a peculiarly impudent 
performance coming from a man who had devoted 
several columns to depreciation of the volume of 1832 
with as much severity as his limited intellectual powers 
would permit. 'The Literary Gazette' would have 
been glad to attack the work unreservedly; it lacked 
the courage. Most of its article was given up to the 

1 'Henry rothergUl Chorley,' by H. G. Hewlett, 1873, Vol. II, p. 2. 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 425 

task of finding fault — which had now begun to grow 
wearisome — with the changes which had been made 
in the poems as previously printed. It expressed 
regret for the disappearance of some pieces and for 
the alterations in others which years before had been 
furiously assailed by the same writer in the same 
periodical. Hardly a word was said about the contents 
of the second volume beyond the assertion that it 
contained many new beauties. The only value the 
review has is the reluctant evidence it bears to the 
place which Tennyson had now begun to occupy in 
the public estimation. 

Jerdan's connection with 'The Literary Gazette' did 
not cease until 1850. He was, however, beginning 
already to be ''the time-worn but not reverend indi- 
vidual" who called upon Hawthorne just as the 
novelist chanced to be reading, "between asleep 
and awake," what he justly termed the "wretched 
twaddle" of his visitor's autobiography. It is a 
singularly suggestive tribute to the advantages of 
anonymousness that this "disreputable senior," as 
Hawthorne styled him, should for a long period of 
years have held a commanding position in critical 
literature. He had come in consequence to believe 
that great weight was to be attached to his opinion. 
There was a delicious impertinence in this fat-witted 
writer setting out to patronize Tennyson as he did in 
this review. He conceded that he was a "true and 
sterling poet." That was all the more reason for 
subjecting him to discipline. We love him, he wrote, 
"just well enough to 'chasten him' for his faults, as 



426 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

we have done before time; — and shall continue so to 
do, until he leaves off his evil practices. ' ' There was 
a fine affectation of friendliness in assuring the poet 
how many of his critics had '*in the kindest manner" 
taken pains to point out ''the unsightly blots with 
which he had disfigured his pages." "We may be 
wrong," he concluded, "in ranking him among the 
foremost of our young poets, as one whose step is near 
that throne which must ere long be vacant ; and whose 
own fault it will be if he misses the crown to which 
he is 'heir-apparent.' " The critic doubtless meant 
heir presumptive. "For," he added with fine critical 
impartiality, "there are others who, with steady eye 
and firm hand are slowly hewing their way to the same 
height. ' '^ 

Nevertheless it gives from another point of view 
an idea of the little importance that Tennyson still 
had in the eyes of a large portion of the public that 
no review of the 'Poems' of 1842 appeared in one of 
the three leading politico-literary weeklies which were 
then in existence. This was 'The Atlas,' held by 
many to be the ablest of all. On the other hand, it 
may be regarded as proof of the impression which 
Tennyson had made upon a large portion of the 
public and the importance he had suddenly assumed 
in its eyes that the quarterlies no longer deemed it 
inconsistent with their dignity, but actually felt it 
incumbent on their position to devote special articles 
to the review of his poems. In each case, too, the 
work of criticism was entrusted to some one connected 

1 'Literary Gazette,' November 19, p. 788. 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 427 

with the author by ties of near or remote personal 
acquaintance. This indeed was not a proceeding 
which tended to produce an undue estimate of his 
achievement. In no case did the enthusiasm of friend- 
ship wanton into extravagant eulogy. Perhaps in no 
case was it permitted to do so. In truth, in reading 
these criticisms, one is reminded of the remark of 
Rogers that if you wish to have your works coldly 
reviewed, get your intimate friend to write an article 
upon them. 

Three reviews there were which appeared in periodi- 
cals of this class during the year 1842. These were 
the work of John Sterling, of Richard Monckton 
Milnes, and of Leigh Hunt. They came out respect- 
ively in the * Quarterly,' the 'Westminster,' and the 
'Church of England Quarterly.' The first to appear 
was that of John Sterling. This was published in 
the number for September. We have been frequently 
told that this periodical made amends for its con- 
temptuous attack upon the volume of 1832 by the 
appreciative criticism which it now published. For 
this very reason it has been made a subject of exceed- 
ingly laudatory mention, especially by those who have 
manifestly never read it. It could not indeed have 
been an altogether grateful thing to Lockhart to open 
the 'Qaarterly' to a friendly review of the work of 
the man whose reputation he had set out years before 
to demolish and which for a time it was believed by 
many that he had demolished. The dose must have 
been a bitter one to swallow. Still, as it apparently 
had to be taken, it was made as palatable as possible 



428 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to the patient. Lockhart has constantly been praised 
for his generosity in admitting to the columns of the 
periodical over which he presided this thoughtful and 
favorable article, as it has been termed. To neither 
of the two epithets is it really entitled. 

Thoughtful certainly is one of the most inappro- 
priate of words with which to describe it. On the 
contrary, with an appearance of profundity, it is 
really shallow. Its author owes to friends a reputation 
which it would not have been in his own power to 
acquire. His memory has been consecrated to pos- 
terity by the pen of a man of genius. Shortly before 
this period his name, as we shall see later, had been 
solemnly placed in the limited roll of true English 
poets by one of the most influential critics of the age, 
if not then its most influential critic. Tennyson him- 
self had been asked by implication to equal him if 
he could. From Sterling, indeed, great things had 
been anticipated from the outset. He was to a marked 
degree a representative of that not infrequent type 
of men whose spoken words produce an impression 
which is never borne out by their written. They some- 
how convey the idea that they are going to accomplish 
something remarkable, but never actually accomplish 
anything worthy of particular mention. There is no 
question as to the charm of Sterling's personal 
presence and the belief in the greatness of his ability 
which he inspired. It affected many of the most 
eminent of his contemporaries, perhaps all of them 
who came within the sound of his voice. It is the 
written word that fails. When he set out to commu- 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 429 

nicate to the reader what had so charmed the hearer, 
the beauty of it and the effectiveness of it somehow 
vanished. Hence the inability of the men who did not 
know him to understand the enthusiasm of those who 
did. Hence his own failure in life. He died compara- 
tively young. Still when he died, he had lived long 
enough to demonstrate that his performance would 
always lag far behind his promise. He never produced 
a single work which contemporaries cared to cherish, 
still less posterity. Sterling's writings, in truth, show 
that the highest rank he could ever have hoped to 
attain would have been that of a 'Quarterly' reviewer; 
and his poetry belongs to that ephemeral class of 
pieces which live their short life in the pages of 
magazines. 

Nowhere does his real lack of critical insight display 
itself more distinctly than in many parts of this 
particular review. Much of it was taken up with a 
general discussion of poetry which had no more to do 
with Tennyson's than with that of any other writer. 
Indeed it seemed to be with difficulty that Sterling 
refrained from giving up the whole of his article to a 
criticism of Wordsworth as he did a portion of it. 
Much of it, too, was devoted to those poems of Tenny- 
son which had been long before the public. About 
these comparatively brief mention would seem to have 
been all that was required. Still, with these Sterling 
had had time to make himself familiar ; and it is about 
them generally that his critical opinion was happiest 
and most worthy of consideration. For one thing in 
particular we may be thankful. He refrained from 



430 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

echoing the cuckoo cry which had been going on of 
deploring the alterations which had been made in the 
poems previously published. In general he com- 
mended these changes. He found fault with several 
of these early pieces, especially those headed with 
the names of women. They were, as he expressed it, 
mere ''moonshine maidens." Others of them are 
cavalierly — and as it seems to me rightfully — disposed 
of as good enough for publication but not good enough 
to spend upon them detailed criticism. But one bad 
slip there was in his criticism of these early poems. 
This was the utterly inadequate, not to say absurd 
notice he gave of the 'Ode to Memory,' which had 
excited, in particular, the warmest praise of Wilson. 
Sterling concluded his remarks upon it with quoting 
its six final lines. These in his opinion exhibited 
Tennyson's unfitness for the production of what he 
called "Orphic song," whatever he meant by that 
Orphic utterance. "Philosophy," he wrote, "that 
sounds all depths, has seldom approached a deeper 
bathos." No other word could have given a truer 
idea not of the poem, but of his criticism of it. 

One further merit Sterling's article had. He 
recognized the great advance which had been made by 
the poet as shown in the pieces constituting the second 
volume. For many of them — especially the 'Idylls' — 
he had unqualified praise. 'The Gardener's Daugh- 
ter,' 'Dora,' and 'Locksley Hall,' he specially singled 
out for eulogium. But along with the lavish commen- 
dation of certain poems went some of the most 
extraordinary judgments about others which ever 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 431 

found their way into print from a reputable quarter. 
It seems so hard to believe that they could have come 
from the pen of a friend and admirer, that one is 
tempted to suspect that the language underwent more 
or less of modification at the hands of the editor. 
There is in truth a singular tone throughout the whole 
review. Few poems that are praised are praised 
without a qualification. Such a piece was well; but 
it might have been so much better ; or it was inferior 
to something that somebody else had written. In 
truth, the curious inaptitude — almost partaking of the 
nature of ineptitude — to penetrate into the poet's 
meaning, which had been exhibited in the remark 
previously quoted upon 'St. Agnes,' was frequently 
manifested here on a grand scale. Sterling praised 
* Ulysses' highly. But why, he asked, should not the 
poem have been written instead upon some one of the 
great modern voyagers, like Columbus, Gama, or even 
Drake? Why should it not indeed? The man who 
does not feel the absolute inappropriateness of any 
such substitution can hardly be expected to be made 
to see it by any process of reasoning. 

To * Godiva ' Sterling also took exception. Admirably 
well done he admitted it to be; but the singularity 
and barbarousness of the fact related did not make it 
fit to be told in verse. The same feeling was even 
more strongly expressed about 'St. Simeon Stylites.' 
The subject, we were assured, was entirely inappro- 
priate for poetry. ''She has better tasks," said the 
critic, "than to wrap her mantle round a sordid, 
greedy lunatic." There are expressions of opinion 



432 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

even more singular than these. 'The Palace of Art' 
was *'a many-colored mistake." 'The Two Voices' 
was a long and dull production, a dispute on immor- 
tality which added nothing to our previous knowl- 
edge — of which Sterling had apparently a good deal — 
and which in substance might better have been given 
in three pages, or rather in one, than in thirty. The 
Moralities, indeed, as he called the poems of this 
nature, almost all appeared to him as decided and 
remarkable failures. He had further a rather poor 
opinion of the 'Morte d 'Arthur. ' It is a further 
illustration of Tennyson's sensitiveness to criticism 
that he told his friend AUingham twenty-five years 
later that he had been prevented from doing his Arthur 
epic in twelve books by this silly criticism of Sterling. 
''I had it all in my mind," he said, ''could have done 
it without any trouble. The King is the complete man, 
the Knights are the passions."^ Nor was Sterling 
altogether satisfied with 'The Talking Oak.' "An 
ancient oak," he sagely observed, "that is won by a 
poet to utter its Dodonaean oracles, would hardly, we 
conceive, be so prolix and minute in its responses." 

The specimens of Sterling's criticisms have been 
given here on a somewhat large scale because this 
article has been usually spoken of as a specially favor- 
able review of the ' Poems ' of 1842. It has been further 
characterized as an amende honorable on the part of 
Lockhart. To neither of these characterizations has 
it any real claim. By its contrast with the previous 
review in the 'Quarterly' it may be called favorable. 

1 William AUingham 's 'Diary,' 1907, under 1867, p. 150. 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 433 

It is perhaps as cordial a criticism as could be expected 
from the man who had failed over the man who had 
succeeded ; but it was not really cordial. Still by way 
of contrast, it made a good deal of an impression upon 
the popular mind; for the wonder was that anything 
save disparagement could come from the quarter in 
which it appeared. Its grudging praise was accord- 
ingly exalted into panegyric. To be sure, the effect 
of the many individual censures was to some extent 
counteracted by frequent commendation of the work 
as a whole. But particulars always make more 
impression than generals; and in spite of the praise 
lavished in a loose way upon the poet, it is doubtful 
if the article in question, if taken by itself, would have 
done as much towards extending Tennyson's reputa- 
tion with the public as a whole, as it would towards 
detracting from it in the minds of those whose knowl- 
edge of him was limited entirely to what was here 
said. Much indeed of the special criticism contained 
in it could hardly have come from a mind that was 
not in many ways essentially prosaic. For him, too, 
who is disposed to rely upon the opinion of others for 
his own literary opinions, there is something startling 
in the contrast presented here of the estimate taken 
by Sterling on particular pieces and those expressed 
a little later by Fanny Kemble in her previously 
mentioned review of these poems. In her eyes 'The 
Talking Oak' was a ''work of absolute perfection." 
''It is faultless," she added. Furthermore 'The Two 
Voices' is described as "Mr. Tennyson's finest poem."^ 

1 * Democratic Eeview, ' January, 1844, p. 77. 



434 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Nor was the review which followed in the 'West- 
minster' for October of an enthusiastic character, 
though it was the work of a personal friend, Richard 
Monckton Milnes, and was signed with his initials. 
It is indeed far warmer in its praise than the article 
in the 'Quarterly.' Still it is slight in texture and 
character, though we may be thankful that, unlike 
Sterling's review, it did not affect a profundity which 
it did not possess. Its insufficiency appears perhaps 
more glaring to us because of its inferiority in appre- 
ciation and insight to the already mentioned article 
of John Stuart Mill which had appeared years before 
in the periodical with which the 'Westminster' had 
been united. One or two peculiar specimens of 
Milnes 's criticisms may be worth citing. He would 
like to have had 'St. Simeon Stylites' out of the 
volume. He also thought 'The Talking Oak' some- 
what too long — a difficulty which lapse of time seems 
to have removed entirely. The review is, however, 
more especially noteworthy to us now for the little 
expectation of the success of the venture that was 
entertained among the author's closest friends. "Mr. 
Tennyson's poems," wrote Milnes, "will, we doubt 
not, obtain such attention as the circumstances of the 
time permit to be given to poetry." In this equivocal 
prognostic once more appears that then prevalent 
distrust of the success of any production in the form 
of verse, of which there has already been so frequent 
occasion to give illustration. 

Of the reviews which appeared in the quarterlies 
of this year, the poorest in all respects was that by 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 435 

Leigh Hunt.^ During his career, Hunt had been made 
the subject of a good deal of silly and occasionally 
of malignant criticism. But he was never the recipient 
of more of the former variety than he himself con- 
tributed on this occasion. He went so far as to repeat 
the old rigmarole about Tennyson's affectations, his 
use of hyphens and other assumed peculiarities. 
These, men of sense were now beginning to leave to 
fifth-rate critics, by whom they regularly continued 
to be reproduced for years to come. Hunt reproached 
Tennyson for having left out some of his second 
and third best productions while retaining most of 
those peculiarly objectionable. Consequently his first 
volume constituted neither an entire collection nor 
a thoroughly satisfactory selection. He furthermore 
did not recognize any advancement in the new volume 
upon the best to be found in the former two, though 
he conceded that there was negative improvement '4n 
the articles of fantasticism and whimsicality." His 
favorite was 'The Two Voices,' the production which 
Sterling had found unnecessarily long and unreason- 
ably dull. This Hunt was at first disposed to think 
proved an advance. On looking closer, however, he 
discovered that 1833 was given as the date of its 
composition. He was consequently denied the con- 
solation of belief in the poet's progress. He thought 
it would be well for him to get out a new volume which 
if less in bulk would have a greater real abundance. 
**He is a genuine poet in his degree," was the opinion 

I'The Church of England Quarterly Eeview,' Vol. XII, pp. 361-376. 



436 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

with whicli he concluded. It is manifest from the 
whole article that *'his degree" was not a high one 
in Hunt's estimation, apparently not so high as his 
own. Certain it is from some of his later utterances 
that it took him a long time to learn that Tennyson 
was a greater poet than himself. Perhaps he never 
came to understand how much greater a one he 
was, though he must have become aware before his 
death that the belief of that sort met with universal 
acceptance. 

The 'Edinburgh' was the last of the great quarter- 
lies to review the work. Its notice did not appear 
until 1843 in the number for April, which came out 
in the middle of that month. At the time the second 
edition of the 'Poems' was going to press. The 
criticism had been delayed by the absence of its author, 
James Spedding, who during several months of 1842 
was in America. As soon as the negotiations for 
the treaty of Washington were completed, Spedding 
returned. His article was more outspoken in the 
praise of the work than any one of the others which 
had appeared in the quarterlies. It was, in truth, 
as enthusiastic as it was allowed to be; but it was 
not allowed to be too enthusiastic. From the editor, 
Macvey Napier, Spedding had obtained leave to review 
the 'Poems.' But coupled with this consent was the 
condition that he would not seek to commit the periodi- 
cal to a too undue estimate of what the author had 
already accomplished or to any prophecies as to what 
he might yet be expected to accomplish. The reputa- 
tion of the "Eeview" must be preserved at all hazards. 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 437 

Cordial, therefore, as was his criticism in comparison 
with those found in the other quarterlies, it was not 
permitted to be too cordial. Spedding had promised 
to be good, and earnestly tried to be good. But with all 
his self-restraint he found that in one instance he had 
gone too far. A sentence in the concluding paragraph 
of his article, as originally written, underwent at the 
chastening hand of the editor, an alteration ''slight 
in itself" he said, ''but considerable in effect and 
significance." "Powers are displayed in these vol- 
umes," he had written, "adequate to the production 
of a very great work." This sentence was modified 
to read "Powers are displayed in these volumes, 
adequate, if we do not deceive ourselves, to the pro- 
duction of a great work." The change was hardly 
worth making or worth noticing when made. When, 
however, Spedding came to republish this article in 
1879 in his volume of 'Essays and Discourses,' he 
restored the original reading, the reputation of the 
"Review" being no longer at stake by the adoption of 
this course. 

It is clear that in writing this article Spedding had 
had in mind certain criticisms which charged the poet 
with the extravagances which in the view of some had 
disfigured the early poems. To a certain extent there 
was foundation for an accusation of the sort. From 
the very outset there were pieces contained in the 
edition of 1842 against the insertion of which his 
strongest friends had protested. Their remonstrances 
had no effect upon the man who has been held up to 
us as altering or omitting lines and passages to suit 



438 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the views of hostile critics. There was unquestionably 
justification for this attitude in regard to certain 
productions. Especially was it true of those written 
in a lighter vein. While Tennj^^son, rarely as he chose 
to resort to it, had the power of producing trenchant 
satire, there was never a great poet more unfitted than 
he for the composition of those elegant trifles which 
go with us under the foreign title of vers de societe. 
He could not write his best save under the pressure of 
deep feeling. It was consequently no personal hos- 
tility which dictated the condemnation of certain 
pieces which he persisted in retaining. '*I agree with 
you," wrote FitzGerald to Pollock, on May 22, 1842, 
' ' quite about the skipping-rope, &c. But the bald men 
of the Embassy would tell you otherwise. I should 
not wonder if the whole theory of the Embassy, 
perhaps the discovery of America itself, was involved 
in that very poem. Lord Bacon's honesty may, I am 
sure, be found there. Alfred, whatever he may think, 
can not trifle — many are the disputes we have had 
about his powers of badinage, compliment, waltzing, 
&c. His smile is rather a grim one. I am glad the 
book is come out, though I grieve for the insertion of 
these little things, on which reviewers and dull readers 
will fix ; so that the right appreciation of the book will 
be retarded a dozen years. "^ 

FitzGerald 's criticism was just, but his forebodings 
were far from being realized. It is significant of the 
hold which Tennyson had gained almost at a stroke 
over his generation that none of these few objection- 

1 ' Letters and Literary Eemains of Edward FitzGerald, ' Vol. I, p. 95. 



KECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 439 

able pieces were seized upon in any quarter to turn 
his whole work into ridicule. They were quietly 
ignored. It took no dozen years, as FitzGerald had 
feared and foretold, for the educated public to appre- 
ciate the new poems brought to its attention, though 
the attention of critics had been largely confined to 
the old ones. For it was the contents of the second 
volume which raised Tennyson to the proud position 
which he was soon to hold. This second volume it is 
which comprises a large share of his poetry which has 
become a part of the permanent riches of our litera- 
ture. It contained in all twenty-nine titles. It opened 
with the *Morte d 'Arthur.' In it were to be found 
pieces so diverse in character as the idyllic 'Garden- 
er's Daughter' and 'Dora' on the one side, and such 
metaphysical questionings as 'The Two Voices' and 
'The Vision of Sin' on the other. Scattered through 
the volume were 'St. Simeon Stylites,' 'Sir Galahad,' 
'Ulysses,' 'The Talking Oak,' 'Godiva,' and numerous 
other poems, diverse in character but differing only 
in the degree of their sustained excellence. In truth, 
one secret of the success of the work was that it 
contained so many pieces suited to different and 
differing orders of mind. We who have become 
familiar with them, as with a tale that has been told 
scores of times, are little able to realize the impression 
they made upon that generation of young and ardent 
spirits to whom they came with the suddenness of an 
inspired revelation. 

Individuals naturally had their preferences for 
particular pieces. But one poem there was which 



440 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

became at once known throughout the English-speaking 
world. This was 'Locksley Hall.' The popularity it 
achieved was instantaneous. It was reprinted and 
circulated everywhere. Nor has the favor of it gained 
at the very outset ever suffered serious diminution. 
This is not to maintain that the piece in question is 
Tennyson's greatest work any more than it is his 
longest. There are others of his productions which 
display characteristics of a higher grade of achieve- 
ment. Still this is the one poem which has appealed to 
the widest circle of sympathies and tastes ; and so long 
as youth continues a portion of life, so long is likely 
to last the popularity of a production which embodies 
the hopes and dreams, the experiences and the aspira- 
tions of youth. For this one reason alone 'Locksley 
Hall' will never lack readers and admirers in any 
and every age. Forster in his early review in 'The 
Examiner' anticipated the general contemporary 
verdict in asserting that this ''grand poem," as he 
called it, was likely to become the favorite piece of 
the whole collection. Such it became at once ; such it 
remained. As late as 1850 Charles Kingsley spoke of 
it as the one production which had had the "most 
influence on the minds of the young men of our day. ' '^ 
Forster 's prediction accordingly turned out to be 
true. But at the time it appeared there were special 
reasons which contributed to the unbounded popu- 
larity of 'Locksley Hall.' No other poem interpreted 
so fully the spirit of the age, its unrest, its hopes, and 
aspirations, its boundless belief in what the future 

1 ' Fraser 's Magazine, ' Vol. XLII, p. 249, September, 1850. 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 441 

had in store, and its equally boundless belief in its 
ability to accomplish all that it dreamed. The period 
was one of exultant anticipation. This feeling, it was 
believed, was not the vague mental intoxication which 
heralded the approach of the French Revolution, but 
a just expectation of the future based upon a calm 
and clear-sighted survey of the forces that were then 
in operation for the improvement of mankind. Modern 
science had begun to enter upon its career of immeas- 
urable conquest. It had already accomplished much 
and was fairly reckless in its promises of what further 
it was to accomplish. Distance of space seemed 
already on the road to annihilation through the further 
application of steam to motive power. Electricity was 
already bringing the most distant regions of the earth 
into the closest proximity of intercourse. The barriers 
that parted man from man and nation from nation 
were in consequence speedily to be burst asunder. 
These wonder-working achievements of science it was 
that held out the hope of a happy solution of the 
numerous vexing problems which had long been lying 
heavy on the hearts of all who thought and felt. 

Accordingly as a result of these transforming 
processes, when at last they had been brought into 
full and active operation, little limit was placed on 
the moral and political progress of humanity. Under 
the influence of these agencies, life would be made 
purer and loftier. A better race than ours would come 
to inherit the earth, men would be braver and nobler 
than now and women fairer and purer. That younger 
day was about to dawn when the conventions that 



442 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

made man the sport of the accidents of birth and 
fortune were destined to disappear ; that younger day 
which, in the fulness of time, when war had ceased, 
was to witness the federation of man, the parliament 
of the world. It was a fascinating picture which the 
youthful poet held before the minds of men ready to 
sympathize with its most glowing promises. It was 
and perhaps will always remain a gorgeous vision 
to uplift the hearts of enthusiasts and to inspire the 
efforts of reformers. But when it appeared it was in 
strictest accord with the dominant feeling of the 
younger generation of the time. In its glowing lines 
were recorded the optimistic views which prevailed 
about the future of the race. It is little wonder 
accordingly that an age which found its most cherished 
ideals expressed in loftiest language should have 
welcomed with enthusiasm the poem and placed the 
poet in the highest rank of living authors. 

The truth is that the success which came to Tenny- 
son in the first instance and remained the secret of his 
continuous popularity at times in face of frequent 
depreciation or intermittent attack, was largely due 
to the fact that he mirrored, as did no other poet of 
his period, the changing feelings and the varying 
moods of the generations to which he successively 
appealed. As in the 'Locksley HalP of 1842 he 
reflected the hopes and aspirations of the era of his 
youth, so in the 'Locksley Hall' of 1886 he reflected 
the fears and disappointment of the generation which 
had succeeded. The optimism of the earlier time had 
given place to the despondency, almost partaking of 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 443 

the nature of pessimism, which had come largely to 
characterize the later. This second poem has often 
been termed a palinode. It is a paKnode in so far as 
it gives a vivid picture of the change which had come 
over the minds of men, as they contrasted the realities 
which confronted them with the high-wrought expec- 
tation which had once been cherished of the brilliant 
results that were to follow man's increasing conquests 
over the forces of nature. Reflected accordingly in 
the later poem was the reaction of the closing years 
of the century against the hope and confidence of its 
prime. The gods in whom men had been taught to 
trust had turned out to be vain gods. Distance of 
space and length of time were, it is true, on the road 
to annihilation. Luxuries once deemed possible only 
for the few had become the indispensable necessities 
of the many. Marvels, once even undreamed of as 
belonging to the realm of reality, had shrunk by usage 
into the most matter-of-fact commonplace. Much had 
been added in many ways to man's material comfort. 
But how about man himself? Was he who was 
whirled fifty miles an hour along the Thames any 
wiser or better than he who more than a score of 
centuries ago sauntered slowly by the banks of the 
Ilissus? It was inevitable that the conviction should 
come that the material agencies from which so much 
had been expected, while they might increase man's 
resources and capabilities, could not of themselves 
add either to his real happiness or to his moral eleva- 
tion ; that the progress of humanity would be no result 
of external forces triumphing over the inert resistance 



444 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of matter, but of the slow processes of those internal 
changes which purify and elevate the soul; that the 
uplifting of the individual must invariably precede the 
uplifting of the race; and that he accomplishes most 
for the regeneration of the world who in his sphere, 
whether high or humble, according to his means, 
whether vast or limited, gives up his life to the service 
of his fellow men. 

But no disturbing feelings of this nature were 
prevalent in the earlier time. So great indeed was 
the interest inspired by this poem that it became a 
favorite belief of some that Tennyson was recording 
in it his own personal experience. In a review of his 
poems several years after the publication of the 
volumes of 1842, Gilfillan with that fine critical per- 
spicacity of the sort he was wont to display spoke of 
this particular piece as telling ''a tale of unfortunate 
passion with a gusto and depth of feeling, which 
(unless we misconstrue the mark of the branding iron) 
betray more than a fictitious interest in the theme. "^ 
Still later Taine made a suggestion to the same effect 
in his 'History of English Literature' — a book which 
would be as valuable as it is delightful, had it more 
frequently occurred to the author that it was desirable 
to read the works on which he set out to pass judg- 
ment. ''Personal memories, they said, had furnished 
the matter of Maud and Locksley Hall,^^ are his words. 
But this attribution was not limited to the author 
himself. On account of the wide popularity of the 
poem, several persons were induced to pose as its hero 

I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' Vol. XIV, p. 230, April, 1847, 



RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 445 

or heroine. There was manifestly no lack of candi- 
dates for this honor. Tennyson's son represents his 
father as saying that some time after he had left 
Cambridge, two undergraduates were walking together 
when one of them chanced to mention the poet 's name. 
The other replied that he hated the man ; for he himself 
was the unhappy hero of Locksley Hall. *'It is," he 
said, 'Hhe story of my cousin's love and mine, known 
to all Cambridge when Mr. Tennyson was there, and 
he put it into verse." Dates contribute a good deal 
of perplexity to this particular tale of woe. As 
* Locksley Hall' did not appear until ten years after 
Tennyson left Cambridge, it is hard to see how his 
student contemporary could have been much afflicted 
by the report of his unfortunate experience unless he 
had achieved a noteworthy place in the history of the 
university for the length of time he remained an 
undergraduate. But this was merely one of several 
instances. Mary Russell Mitford, for example, tells 
us in a letter of August 7, 1847, that ** William Harness 
had been dining with the heroine of 'Locksley Hall' 
and her husband."^ Doubtless there were many 
similar heroes and heroines of small circles whose 
names have never reached the ears of the public. 

1 ' Letters of Mary Eussell Mitford, ' 2d series, edited by Henry 
Chorley, 1872, Vol. I, p. 235. 



CHAPTER XVII 
AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 

The American edition of Tennyson's poems followed 
a few weeks after the appearance of the English. It 
came from the Boston house of Ticknor & Company. 
Doubtless by an arrangement with the poet or his 
London publisher, the edition was almost an exact 
reproduction of the one brought out on the other side 
of the Atlantic. It was hardly to be expected that 
the work would meet with the success in America 
which had greeted it in England, in spite of the fact 
that it was from this country that the heaviest pressure 
to publish had come. For a rapid and extensive 
circulation of the volumes in the United States the 
ground had hardly been prepared. Here the previous 
productions of the poet had been practically inacces- 
sible. There is still in existence a manuscript volume 
in the handwriting of James Russell Lowell which 
contains a number of Tennyson's early poems. These 
had been copied by him at the time and were circulated 
among a group of private friends.^ To such shifts 
were the American admirers of the poet forced to 
resort. In consequence, there had been little oppor- 
tunity for men to become acquainted with his writings ; 
by vast numbers of the educated even his very name 

1 F. Greenslet 's * James Eussell Lowell, ' p. 42. 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 447 

had hardly been heard. Furthermore, the piratical 
reprinting of British periodicals, brought about by 
the absence of international copyright, had noticeably 
destroyed here the spirit of independent criticism. 
Men were largely in a state of intellectual servitude. 
Accepting views at second hand which had not been 
worthy of being heeded at first hand, and retaining 
them after the originators had outgrown them, or had 
become ashamed of them, will account for most of the 
hostile criticism to which Tennyson was here subjected 
at the outset. 

A somewhat hesitating attitude, to be sure, was 
occasionally taken which was not at all due to that 
cause. To a certain extent, both in England and 
America, the perfect finish of Tennyson's poetry has 
constantly militated against the loftiness of the esti- 
mate placed upon it. Men have always shown a 
disposition to become tired and at times resentful of 
anything approaching flawless achievement. It is a 
feeling which is never entirely absent from human 
nature, and has undoubtedly often expressed itself in 
action long before Aristides was ostracized by his 
irritated fellow citizen for being everywhere termed 
the Just. Something of a sentiment of the same general 
character has been, even from the beginning, more or 
less prevalent about Tennyson. With a particular 
class of readers there is a disposition to believe that 
poetry which possesses smoothness must on that very 
account be deficient in strength. It lacks strength 
because it lacks roughness. This is very much as if 
a great piece of architecture should be deemed wanting 



448 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

in solidity and stability because it possesses through- 
out the beauty of grace and exquisite proportion. 

Echoes of this sort of feeling were heard then and 
long afterward even from those honestly disposed to 
admire. Early in August, 1842, Charles Sumner wrote 
to Milnes of the appearance of the American edition. 
*' Tennyson's poems," he said, ''have been reprinted 
in Boston, and the reprint is a precise copy of the 
English edition in size, type, and paper, so that it is 
difficult to distinguish the two editions. It is reprinted 
for the benefit of the author, to whom the publisher 
hopes to remit some honorarium. Emerson and his 
followers are ardent admirers of Tennyson, and it is 
their enthusiastic, unhesitating praise that induced a 
bookseller to undertake the reprint. There are some 
things in the second volume which I admire very much. 
' LocksleyHall ' has some magnificent verses, and others 
hardly intelligible. 'Godiva' is unequalled as a narra- 
tive in verse, and the little stories of Lady Clare and 
the Lord of Burleigh are told in beautiful measure. 
I am struck with the melody of his verse, its silver 
ring, and its high poetic fancy; but does it not want 
elevated thought and manliness ? And yet, in its way, 
what can be more exquisite than CEnone making 
Mount Ida echo with her complaints'? Was her story 
ever told in a sweeter strain in any language 1 ' " 

It is pretty hard for us at this late day to discover 
what any one could then have found unintelligible in 
'Locksley Hall.' But the sentiments just quoted, little 

1 ' Life, Letters and Friendships of Eichard Monckton Milnes, ' Vol. 
I, p. 279. 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 449 

as they would have satisfied Tennyson's ardent admir- 
ers in this country, doubtless represent fairly the view 
taken then by many cultivated men who came for the 
first time to the perusal of these poems. But here, in 
truth, possibly more than in England, did the dispo- 
sition to underrate prevail in certain quarters. At 
all events, it had here the courage, which it lacked 
there, of expressing to the full its hostility. Conse- 
quently the old depreciatory remarks, forgotten or 
suppressed in England, continued to be repeated in 
America in certain quarters. Tennyson's career was 
strewn throughout with the absurdities of English 
criticism; and it is not fitting that those exhibited on 
this side of the Atlantic should escape commemoration. 
They lacked here even the slight merit of originality. 
Two utterances in particular, which then appeared, are 
worth citing because they show conclusively that the 
impression created by Lockhart's article was even at 
that late day still exerting its influence in this country. 
A peculiarly choice specimen of this sort of pilfered 
severity can be found in 'The Southern Literary 
Messenger,' published at Richmond, Virginia. For the 
view expressed in it, its author cannot plead that 
hastiness of impression which results from the limita- 
tion of time which is afforded for forming an opinion. 
The criticism did not appear until April, 1844. 
Accordingly the writer had had the benefit of two 
years to make up his mind. He gained nothing by 
the delay. He did little more than repeat in an 
intensified form the opinions expressed in the 'Quar- 
terly' of 1833, though at this date their very author 



450 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

had been forced to repent of their publication if he 
had not gained the grace to feel ashamed of their 
character. The American reviewer rehashed all the 
old criticisms apparently under the belief that they 
were his own. He actually went back to Lockhart's 
article and quoted from it the lines to Christopher 
North; for the volume in which these had appeared 
he had manifestly never seen. *'Mr. Tennyson," waS' 
his conclusion, ''appears to be a man of slender intel- 
lect, who has inflamed his imagination by believing 
himself a poet, and has supplied its numerous vacuities 
by studying the works of others." 

Fortunately for his repute the name of this gifted 
southern critic has either been forgotten or more 
probably has been studiously withheld from the knowl- 
edge of the public.^ Unfortunately such good luck has 
not fallen to the lot of his northern rival. In the same 
quarterly, in which six years before a cordial welcome 
had been extended to Tennyson 's early verse, appeared 
a review of the poems of 1842 altogether different in 
character.^ It came too from an honored name. It 
was the work of Felton, professor of Greek at Harvard 
College. Felton was a scholar and a man of culture; 
but he was as little alive to the new influences that 
were beginning to dominate literature as was Croker 
on the other side of the Atlantic. He belonged to the 

1 ' ' An anonymous reviewer of Tennyson 's poems is not at all com- 
plimentary. " — 'The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834-1864,' by Benja- 
min Blake Minor, Editor and Proprietor from 1843 to 1847, 1905, p. 123. 
One gets the impression that the anonymous reviewer was the editor 
himself. 

2 'Christian Examiner,' Vol. XXXIII, pp. 237-244, November, 1842. 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 451 

old school of critics who accepted fully the belief that 
the poetry at this time coming into vogue — that of 
Keats and Tennyson — lacked the severe simplicity and 
classic spirit of the former age. Such persons had 
been somewhat discouraged by the defection of the 
'Quarterly' in allowing a so-called favorable notice 
of Tennyson to appear in its columns. Its authority, 
however, was not sufficient to dispose them to bow 
down and worship at the shrine of the new deity which 
the men of the younger generation had set up. 

Of these recalcitrants on this side of the Atlantic, 
Felton was one of the most conspicuous. His article 
indeed is of particular interest because it reveals how 
wide-reaching had been the influence of Lockhart's 
criticism, and how intense was still the prejudice 
against Tennyson which had been set in motion by the 
hostile treatment which had been accorded him in his 
own land. Here we find it manifesting its old char- 
acter and vigor in what must be called not the most 
abusive but distinctly the silliest criticism which the 
poet's new venture received anywhere. 'The Quar- 
terly Review' might yield to the change which had 
been going on in public sentiment and retract its 
previous censures. Not so its faithful followers in 
this country. Fate has been kind to many critics 
during their lives in hiding behind a bulwark of type 
all public knowledge of the authorship of their pro- 
ductions. It has been even kinder in death, when not 
merely is their memory forgotten but the memory of 
what they wrote. Hard, therefore, has been the fortune 
of this particular reviewer, who could so little forecast 



452 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the future that, disdaining the shelter of anonymous- 
ness, he signed his initials to his article. Few are the 
men who would like to go down to posterity with their 
names attached to the criticism now to be considered. 
A curiosity it assuredly is both for the ridiculousness 
of the opinions which it expressed and for the ridicu- 
lousness of the facts which it stated. It is in the 
following way that Felton paid his respects to the 
new poet. 

''Mr. Tennyson's poetical fortunes," began the 
review, ''have been singularly various. Some six or 
seven years ago he first became known, partly by his 
own extraordinary demerits, and chiefly by a stringent 
review in the London Quarterly. It was supposed 
that he was, poetically speaking, dead; he certainly 
was, theatrically speaking, though not theologically, 
damned. Strange to say, his poems found their way 
across the Atlantic, and gained favor in the eyes of 
a peculiar class of sentimentalists. Young ladies were 
known to copy them entire, and learn them by heart. 
Stanzas of most melodious unmeaningness passed 
from mouth to mouth, and were praised to the very 
echo. The man who possessed a copy was the envy 
of more than twenty persons, counting women and 
children; until at length Mr. Tennyson came into 
possession of a very considerable amount of reputa- 
tion. His ardent admirers sent to England for copies ; 
but singularly enough, not one was to be had. The 
poet had bought them all up and committed them to 
the flames ; but moved by the transatlantic resurrection 
of his poetical character, he set about convincing 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 453 

people that he was alive too at home. He broke upon 
the world in the twofold splendor of a pair of volumes, 
published in Mr. Moxon's finest style. His former 
writings were clipped of many puerilities, and brought 
nearer the confines of common sense; to them were 
added many poems never before printed, some of 
which are marked by a delicate frost-work kind of 
beauty. The London Quarterly Journalists came out 
immediately with a long and highly laudatory critique, 
and ranked Mr. Tennyson among the foremost poets 
of the age, without an allusion to the homicidal attack 
they had made on him only a few short years before ; 
and without the least apology for surrendering the 
infallibility of reviewers." 

Whether it was owing to inaccuracy of information 
or to sportiveness of spirit manifesting itself in a 
somewhat elephantine way, it is clear that several of 
the statements made in the foregoing paragraph are 
not to be recommended for their rigid conformity to 
fact. But these were left far behind by the critical 
estimate and imaginary personal portrayal, honestly 
intended to be facetious, which followed. Along with 
his severity ran Felton's stern determination to be 
jocose at all hazards. He did not deny the poet the 
possession of some genius. There was even an 
affectation of candor in his remark that Tennyson 
looked ''on things with a poetical eye" — which is some- 
thing more than could be said for his critic. But he 
modified even this praise by adding that the things he 
looks on are ' ' small things, and his eye is none of the 
largest. . . . He has a remarkable alacrity at sinking. ' ' 



454 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Further we were told that while he was *'a dainty 
poet," he was deficient in manly thought and strong 
expression. ''He is," said the critic, *'a curious 
compound of the poet, the dandy, and the Delia Crus- 
can. ' ' As was to be expected, affectation was declared 
to be his prevailing intellectual vice. The critic added 
a playful mental picture of the bodily presence of the 
man, the verisimilitude of which must have much 
impressed those who were aware of the poet's care- 
lessness in dress. ''We cannot help fancying him," 
said Felton, "to be altogether finical in his personal 
habits. He is a sweet gentleman and delights to gaze 
upon his image in a glass; his hair is probably long, 
and carefully curled; he writes in white kid gloves, 
on scented paper; perhaps he sleeps in yellow curl- 
papers. We are certain he lisps." But with all this 
distressing facetiousness, the critic was not altogether 
unfair. It may be maintained indeed that he unde- 
signedly made much more than amends for what he 
said by what he did. As a sort of offset to a review 
intended to be mildly satirical and wholly humorous, 
he printed the whole of ' Locksley Hall. ' It is not often 
that a critic of poetrj^ is willing to disclose to the 
intelligent reader so manifest an exhibition of his own 
critical incapacity. 

There were other unfavorable notices in American 
periodicals, but none quite so hopelessly inane as the 
two which have just been cited. It must not be fancied, 
however, that these reflected the prevailing tone of 
criticism. Even hostile as these were, they admitted 
the fact that the poems had met with success. The 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 455 

writer in the northern periodical bore reluctant 
witness to their popularity, especially to their popu- 
larity with those who lacked the austere taste and 
intellectual virility of the critic, and his disdain for 
the meretricious charms with which the poet had 
bedecked his muse. The reviewer in 'The Southern 
Literary Messenger' felt obliged to concede the fact 
that they had been received favorably. ''They have 
been republished here, ' ' he said, ' ' and we are informed 
that they have met with a ready and extensive sale." 
For in America as in England, the poems found read- 
ers who had been brought up on more nourishing 
intellectual diet than old 'Quarterly Reviews.' As 
time went on, even Felton, while retaining his hostility, 
felt that he must concede to the poet genius of a certain 
sort as well as the popularity which he deplored. In 
'The North American Review' for April, 1844, there 
was a criticism by him of the poems of Lowell.^ In 
the course of it he spoke of the feeble and flat imita- 
tions of Mrs. Hemans which had appeared. "And 
now," he continued, "feebler and flatter imitations of 
Alfred Tennyson wear out the forbearance of a long- 
suffering public." He found the same fault with the 
American poet that 'The Quarterly Review' had 
previously found with Milnes. He warned him against 
the tendency to imitate Tennyson. He discovered in 
him "a disposition to mimic the jingle of a man who, 
with much genius, and an exquisite ear for musical 
rhythm, has also a Titanian fondness for quaint and 

1 Vol. LVIII, p. 286. 



456 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

dainty expressions, affected turns, and mawkishly 
effeminate sentiment." 

To Felton indeed and to men like him in control of 
'The North American Review,' there continued to be 
a persistent ignoring of the work of Tennyson which 
was not in the least due to ignorance. For a long 
series of years, he was the one English poet whom 
that periodical sedulously refrained from noticing. 
Though time and space were given up to elaborate 
criticisms of English writers of far inferior grade, no 
review of Tennyson appeared for many years in its 
columns. Incidental references only are to be found. 
Naturally there was nothing said about the volumes 
of 1842. But likewise there was nothing said of 'The 
Princess,' of 'In Memoriam,' of the 'Ode on the Death 
of the Duke of Wellington.' It was not until 1855 
when his reputation had swept away all unfavorable 
criticism of the slightest significance, that a single 
article on his works was allowed to appear. It was 
a review of 'Maud.' It was not very long, nor as a 
piece of criticism was it broad. Still, feeble as it was, 
it was intended to be complimentary. But by that 
time it had become a matter of indifference to readers 
whether any notice of his poetry appeared in 'The 
North American Review' or not. Every one had then 
made up his mind — that is, every one who had a mind 
to make up — and cared little what any critic said either 
for or against the poet. It is, however, justice to add 
that in the periodical in question various incidental 
references to Tennyson appeared during the interval. 
Some of them too were highly laudatory ; for contribu- 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 457 

tors to the review had sense, even if its conductors 
did not. 

There was doubtless a certain amount of truth in 
the satirical references made by Felton to the class 
of persons who had welcomed with special enthusiasm 
Tennyson's earlier volumes. The pressure from 
America to publish had come to no small extent from 
the group of disciples who had gathered about Emer- 
son. It was far from being confined to them, but in 
them it found its noisiest manifestation. They 
belonged to the so-called Transcendental School which 
in 1841 had established as a sort of official organ the 
quarterly periodical called 'The Dial.' Of this pub- 
lication Margaret Fuller was the original editor. 
Testimony to the admiration felt for Tennyson by 
the members of this band is met with frequently. A 
belated notice of his two early volumes appeared in 
*The Dial' for July, 1841.^ It pretty certainly came 
from the pen of its editor. "Tennyson is known by 
heart," said the writer, '4s copied as Greek works 
were at the revival of literature; nothing has been 
known for ten years back more the darling of the 
young than these two little volumes." 

Accordingly it was inevitable that the members of 
the circle which surrounded Emerson — who, though 
an admirer of the poet, was far from being as enthu- 
siastic a one as his followers — it was inevitable that 
they should hail with intense gratification the prospect 
of the publication of additional poems by their favorite. 
The forthcoming work was duly announced in 'The 

1 Vol. II, p. 135. 



458 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Dial' for July, 1842.^ ''Alfred Tennyson," it said, 
''moved by being informed of his American popularity, 
has given himself to the labor of revising and reprint- 
ing a selection of his old poems, and adding as many 
new ones, which he has sent to Mr. Wheeler of Harvard 
University, who is republishing them here." It is 
evidence of the distance of time as well as of space 
which then separated the two continents that the work, 
which Tennyson is here described as preparing for 
the press, had already been before the English people 
for several weeks. By the group of persons already 
indicated, the volumes when they came out in this 
country were received with intense enthusiasm. A 
most cordial review of them appeared in 'The Dial' 
for October of the same year, which by its fervor 
contrasts sharply with the staid tone of the English 
quarterlies. This again was probably the work of 
Margaret Fuller. It certainly corresponds in spirit 
to the words in her journal of August, 1842, in which 
she records her impression of the work which had just 
appeared in America. "I have just been reading," 
it said, "the new poems of Tennyson. Much has he 
thought, much suifered, since the first ecstasy of so 
fine an organization clothed all the world with rosy 
light. He has not suffered himself to become a mere 
intellectual voluptuary, nor the songster of fancy and 
passion, but has earnestly revolved the problems of 
life, and his conclusions are calmly noble. In these 
later verses is a still, deep sweetness; how different 
from the intoxicating sensuous melody of his earlier 

1 Vol. Ill, p. 135. 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 459 

cadence." In the article itself there was little limit 
to the praise bestowed. Approbation indeed was given 
to poems for which few have been found to say a good 
word. ''Nothing is more uncommon," said, for 
instance, the writer, "than the lightness of touch, 
which gives a charm to such little pieces as the 'Skip- 
ping Eope.' " It ought to be more than uncommon; 
it should be impossible. 

But the article represented fairly, in general, the 
attitude of the early American admirers of the poet 
who had been instrumental in urging upon him the 
necessity of appearing once more in print. It was of 
course far from being universal. In the various criti- 
cal utterances in this country, as well as in England, 
there was at times displayed ignorance; there was 
indifference; there was to a certain extent hostility. 
Depreciatory opinions came occasionally from quar- 
ters where we should least have expected it. Even in 
'The Dial" itself, as at about the same time in 'The 
Cambridge University Magazine,' appeared reviews 
of Tennyson's poems which did not err on the side of 
undue praise. The writer in the former periodical 
objected to him as being too superfine, as lacking what 
he called rude truth — whatever he meant by the phrase. ' 
"We must not make our bread of pure sugar," he 
remarked. "The poem," he added, "of all the poetry 

1 It has been a very common statement that it was Emerson 's admira- 
tion of the poems that caused their publication in America. But it was 
not so much the admiration of Emerson as that of his followers. When 
Margaret Fuller ceased to edit 'The Dial,' its tone immediately changed. 
Under Emerson's editorship no one could accuse it of extravagant 
praise of Tennyson. In it appeared some of those extraordinary literary 
judgments which eminence indulges in for the comfort of its inferiors. 



460 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of the present age, for which we predict the longest 
term, is 'Abou ben Adhem' of Leigh Hunt."^ In the 
English periodical the writer repeated the old formu- 
las, criticised the poet for his quaintnesses of spelling 
and expression, and in particular for his doggerel. 
Of this last 'Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue' 
was cited as a peculiarly objectionable specimen. 
These expressions of opinion need no comment ; for of 
themselves they indicate unmistakably the literary 
status of the critics. It will probably occasion no 
surprise to learn that both the periodicals in which 
they appeared speedily died. 

But articles like these were after all mere eddies in 
the general stream of approbation. There was a great 
deal of genuine appreciation early manifested in this 
country which had not been fed on previous knowledge, 
although it was not till the following decade that it had 
had time to become practically universal. Not to speak 
of various anonymous printed utterances, a cordial 
tribute was paid the poet in 1845 by Edwin Percy 
Whipple, who at that period held, especially in New 
England, high repute as one of the country's most 
eminent critics. This is a sort of reputation, which, 
whether deserved or undeserved, is of the most tran- 
sitory nature. Eufus Wilmot Griswold, an industrious 
but not illuminating compiler, had brought out a 
volume entitled 'The Poets and Poetry of England 
in the Nineteenth Century.' In it he assured us with 
delightful gravity that the writings of Alfred Tenny- 
son have sufficient merit to place him '4n the third 

1 April, 1843, A^ol. Ill, pp. 517-518. 



AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 461 

or fourth rank of contemporary English poets. ' ' With 
this solemn pronouncement Whipple naturally made 
himself merry in his review of the second edition of 
the work which appeared in 1844. To outspoken praise 
of the poet he devoted several pages.^ 

But no published criticism at this early date, either 
in America or any other country, rivalled that of Foe 
in the estimate placed upon Tennyson's achievement. 
It found expression again and again. It must be borne 
in mind that Poe died in 1849. This was before a 
great deal of the work by which Tennyson is now 
largely known was in existence, or at least had come 
to the knowledge of men. Accordingly, he was familiar 
only with his comparatively early verse, which still 
continued to be disparaged by many. But Poe, who 
never lacked the courage of his convictions, had no 
hesitation in proclaiming the superiority of Tennyson 
to all the poets of his generation. His criticism of 
other authors varied widely at times — at least it 
seemed to vary — as to the nature and extent of their 
merits or demerits. But in regard to Tennyson he 
never wavered; though he would persist — or at least 
his publishers did — in printing 'CEnone' as '^none.' 
His conclusions were based largely upon the poems 
found in the edition of 1842. As early as August, 1843, 
he had expressed his admiration. It went far beyond 
what most admirers were then willing to go, or at least 
were permitted to go in their published utterance. 
''For Tennyson," he wrote, ''as for a man imbued 
with the richest and rarest poetic impulses, we have an 

1 ' The American Review, A Whig Journal, ' Vol. II, p. 45. 



462 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

admiration — a reverence unbounded. His 'Morte 
d 'Arthur,' his 'Locksley Hall,' his 'Sleeping Beauty,' 
his 'Lady of Shalott,' his 'Lotos-Eaters,' his '^^Enone,' 
and many other poems, are not surpassed in all that 
gives to Poetry its distinctive value, by the composi- 
tions of any one living or dead."^ A little more than 
a year after, he went much farther than any one else 
had ever gone, at least in print. He was not content 
with merely putting him at the head of contemporary 
writers. "I am not sure," he wrote, "that Tennyson 
is not the greatest of poets. The uncertainty attending 
the public conception of the term 'poet' alone pre- 
vents me from demonstrating that he is. Other bards 
produce effects which are, now and then, otherwise 
produced than by what we call poems; but Tennyson 
an effect which only a poem does. His alone are 
idiosyncratic poems. By the enjoyment or non-enjoy- 
ment of the 'Morte d 'Arthur,' or of '^none,' I would 
test any one 's ideal sense. ' '^ Nor did the attitude here 
indicated ever change. His last recorded utterance 
about Tennyson was not printed till after his own 
death. In the essay entitled 'The Poetic Principle,' 
in citing from 'The Princess' the four stanzas begin- 
ning "Tears, idle tears," he asserted of their author 
that "in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest 
poet that ever lived. "^ 

Still it is manifest from the evidence that has been 
presented that the appreciation, great as it was, which 

I'Onr Amateur Poets,' No. 3, 'Graham's Magazine,' August, 1843. 
2 'Democratic Keview,' December, 1844, Vol. XV, p. 580. 
s'Sartain's Union Magazine,' October, 1850, Vol. VI, p. 238. 



AMEEICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 463 

at that early time waited upon Tennyson, had as yet 
neither in England nor America become universal. 
Little of the enthusiasm which prevailed among the 
most cultivated class of readers, especially among the 
younger members of that body, found expressions in 
the organs which professed to represent and guide 
public opinion. The only review of that period which 
gave full and unreserved utterance to the sentiment 
which was ultimately to prevail can be found in 'Tait's 
Edinburgh Magazine' of August, 1842. But another 
voice from that same region was silent. It was a voice, 
too, which under ordinary conditions might well have 
been expected to be the very first to greet the man 
who had so unexpectedly to most exhibited his poetical 
supremacy. Yet from it no welcome was heard. Of 
the new work which cultivated readers all over the 
land were talking about, no notice was taken by the 
then renowned critic of 'Blackwood's Magazine.' In 
its conduct his influence still remained predominant. 
Not for some years after the publication of the volumes 
of 1842 was the name of Tennyson so much as men- 
tioned in the columns of that periodical. But more 
than simple omission had characterized the critic's 
course ; there had been aggressive action. At the time 
itself the poet indeed was not assailed by name ; but he 
was so by implication. The appearance of another 
work was seized upon as the occasion to minimize 
or rather to depreciate his achievement. No notice 
has ever been taken of these attacks upon Tennyson 
either by his biographers or by students of the literary 
history of the times. But the attitude assumed towards 



464 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the first poet of the age in the early years of his career 
by him who was generally rated as the first critic of 
the age is a matter of sufficient importance to demand 
full recital. It assuredly forms a distinctly curious 
story in the history of criticism; and as it has never 
been told, to its narration the following chapter shall 
be devoted. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS ON 
TENNYSON 

In spite of its bluster and rowdyism and occasional 
mad antics of all sorts, 'Blackwood's Magazine' for 
the quarter of a century following its foundation in 
1817 was one of the best-conducted of British literary 
periodicals. Furthermore it was on the whole one 
of the fairest. That, too, it was in spite of its virulent 
Toryism and frequent lapses into the most reprehen- 
sible outbursts of abuse. Its editor is now known to 
have been its publisher. By the great body of its 
readers, however, John Wilson — better known by his 
pseudonym of Christopher North — was credited with 
holding that place. He was so called indeed by Lock- 
hart. The belief was to this extent true in that he 
was the great mainstay of the magazine. Without 
his help it certainly could never have kept the position 
it speedily secured, even if it could have reached it 
at all. 

Wilson's criticism of the Tennyson volume of 1830 
was, as we have seen, followed by the petulant and 
foolish lines addressed to Christopher North in the 
volume of 1832. These were unworthy both in their 
matter and in their spirit. In spite of the swaggering 
tone of the article, its patronizing airs, its denunciation 



466 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of particular pieces, and that general assumption of 
superiority which is part of the stock in trade of the 
reviewer, the impression given by it as a whole was 
distinctly favorable. Wilson indeed had a right to feel 
indignant at the way, both petty and pettish, in which 
his criticism had been taken by its subject. He how- 
ever took no notice — at least no public notice — at the 
time of the attack upon himself. What he might have 
said was said vicariously through Lockhart's article 
in the ' Quarterly. ' He kept silence indeed for several 
years, so far certainly as any published utterances in 
his own magazine were concerned. Nor was there in 
that periodical any exhibition of hostility to Tennyson. 
On the contrary, it contained a few of what might have 
been deemed then fairly flattering references to his 
work, however inadequate they may seem now. In a 
highly laudatory review of Trench's 'Story of Justin 
Martyr' praise was given to the sonnets of Tennyson.^ 
These, to be sure, were the poems of his least deserv- 
ing of commendation. Nor would the junction of his 
name with the other writers mentioned — Leigh Hunt, 
David Moir, Barry Cornwall, and John Clare — impress 
men of the present day as conveying much of a compli- 
ment. Still, it is always unfair to judge of the 
criticism of the past by the estimation of the present. 
Every great writer attains in time to a certain wealth 
of reputation, not indeed an unearned increment, but 
an amount of compound interest which has been 
accruing since the investment was first made. 
But though he said nothing for a time, Wilson's 

1' Blackwood's Magazine/ September, 1835, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 425. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 467 

resentment for the attack made upon him never 
slumbered. We hear often of the irritability and 
sensitiveness of authors. There are assuredly among 
them individuals easily affected by hostile criticism; 
but as a body they are no more sensitive than any 
other class of men. Similar displays of feeling occur 
on every side and by the members of every profession ; 
but the knowledge of these never reaches the ears of 
any beyond the circle of their immediate personal 
acquaintance. But the resentment of authors is not 
merely vocal; it is also permanent. It is fairly sure 
to be printed and widely circulated. If they have 
achieved popularity, it is talked about everywhere. 
So long as their works continue to be read, it is never 
forgotten, while the resentment of the critic, no matter 
how eminent in his day, is little likely to be known 
to posterity, for the knowledge of it never reaches 
posterity. The cases are very exceptional when criti- 
cal literature interests and influences any one but 
contemporaries. Rarely indeed is it even heard of 
save by contemporaries. Consequently, as in the case 
of other men, with the passing away of the life of the 
reviewer passes away all memory of the resentment 
he may have displayed. 

If, however, sensitiveness to disparagement of their 
work can be predicated of authors as a body, it is the 
most marked in the case of those of them who are 
specially critics by profession. Accustomed to attack 
others with little restraint, they become furious at any 
attack upon themselves. There has already been 
occasion to record the excitement and wrath displayed 



468 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

in this particular on one occasion by both Lockhart 
and Wilson. It is with the latter only that we have 
to deal here. Never was susceptibility to a petty 
personal quip more signally exhibited than it was by 
him in his later attitude towards the poet. Great as 
had been the sensitiveness shown by Tennyson to 
Wilson 's review, it was more than equalled, it was far 
surpassed by the sensitiveness of Wilson to Tenny- 
son's retort. The latter had had the grace to become 
ashamed of his outburst almost as soon as he found 
it too late to have it recalled. But his apologetic 
letter did not placate the critic. Wilson brooded over 
it. As time went on, it loomed up more and more 
distinctly in his thoughts. Some years indeed passed 
before he gave expression to his resentment, at least 
public expression. It seems likely that at first he 
fancied Tennyson's career would be too inconspicuous 
for him to add anything to the assumed crushing 
attack which had come from the 'Quarterly.' But as 
years went by, the poet's reputation, though increasing 
slowly, was still increasing. The faith in him of his 
original friends and admirers, so far from wavering, 
was steadily becoming more intensified. But, further- 
more, it was beginning to be shared by those who had 
with Tennyson no ties of personal acquaintance. This 
slow but steady advance in the estimation of the public 
began at last to attract the attention of Wilson. More 
and more he noted it, more and more he took it amiss. 
He became embittered enough at last to assume the 
offensive. 

Foolish as had been Tennyson's manifestation of 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 469 

resentment at Wilson's article, the critic was now to 
show himself far more censurable in the matter of 
what he said, in the spirit with which he said it, and 
in the addition of reprehensible conduct for what he 
pretended he had said but what he had failed to say. 
Nor did the attacks he soon came to make have the 
excuse of momentary irritation. On the contrary, they 
followed years after the offence had been originally 
committed; they were continued as long as he dared 
to oppose his own view of the poet to that of the public. 
Though no notice has ever been taken of these utter- 
ances, though all knowledge of them seems to have 
died from the memory of men, they present a curious 
picture of the importance which the editors of the 
leading critical periodicals then attributed to their 
own opinions, and the sanctity they assumed for 
themselves. 

In this matter one sees the reason why Jeffrey 
gained the hold he did upon his generation. Whatever 
were his other critical shortcomings, he cherished no 
resentment for attacks upon himself, when he came to 
express a literary judgment. Take his attitude upon 
the publication of the first two cantos of 'Childe 
Harold.' This came out at a time when a verdict of 
'The Edinburgh Eeview' usually carried life or death 
for the time being to the work it criticised. Jeffrey 
had been fiercely attacked by Byron in his 'English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' In a note to his new 
venture the poet gave further expression to the feel- 
ings of enmity which he still cherished against the 
periodical and its editor. But none of these things 



470 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

affected in the slightest the estimate which Jeffrey- 
gave of the new work. At the close of his article he 
made merely the slightest of references to the hostility 
of Byron towards himself personally. ''For our own 
parts," he concluded, "when we speak in our collective 
and public capacity, we have neither resentments nor 
predilections; and take no merit to ourselves for 
having spoken of Lord Byron's present publication 
exactly as we should have done, had we never heard 
of him before as an author. ' ' Men may take exception 
to Jeffrey's critical views; but fault can rarely be 
found with his critical attitude. In that it is easy to 
see one great reason why he so powerfully impressed 
his contemporaries as a literary judge. 

Not so with Wilson. He never forgot or forgave. 
The resentment he cherished for Tennyson's con- 
temptuous refusal of any praise he had bestowed 
continued to rankle in his bosom, though it was not 
until nearly four years after the publication of the 
volume of 1832 that it made first public manifestation 
of itself. This occurred in a review of the 'Miscella- 
neous Plays' of Joanna Baillie. That authoress had 
in 1836 broken the silence of several years by bringing 
out three volumes of dramatic pieces. They received 
the usual laudatory notice from the regular critics and 
were received with the usual indifference by the public. 
The fortunes of that playwright, it may be said here, 
were peculiar. Rarely has any one been more praised 
by those whose praise was worth having. From the 
time of her first appearance as a dramatic writer in 
1798 until the publication just mentioned, the most 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 471 

authoritative reviewers expressed unqualified coni- 
mendation of her work. By minor critics she had been 
attacked; but of the great ones Jeffrey seems to have 
been the only one who managed to retain his judgment 
along with his admiration. By Scott she was called 
the bold enchantress who had awakened the inspired 
strain of Shakespeare. 

The practice of so celebrating her began early and 
continued late. Her plays were extolled as exhibiting 
the development of the pure dramatic faculty with the 
least possible aid from external influences. Her lyrics, 
which were but ordinary productions, were spoken of 
in terms of extravagant eulogy. But while her plays 
were warmly praised by critics, they met with com- 
paratively little success upon the stage. Yet powerful 
influences were several times at work to make them 
succeed. In 1800 the Kembles brought out 'De Mont- 
fort' at Drury Lane. The aristocracy lent the produc- 
tion its fullest support. Members of it wrote prologue 
and epilogue. More than anything else, the principal 
female part was taken by Mrs. Siddons. Yet with all 
these aids, direct and adventitious, it was with difficulty 
the play was made to run eleven nights. In spite of 
occasional successes, this experience represents in 
general the fortune which befell the representation 
of her pieces. They were unfitted for the stage, it 
was said, in consequence of the theory of composition 
she had adopted. Her whole object in each one was 
to represent the development of a single passion. 
While this method might be good for the closet, it 
practically debarred the use of stage effect. Unfor- 



472 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

tunately for this explanation, these plays succeeded 
no better with the reading public than they did with 
the frequenters of the theater. Her works had a 
respectable sale; but they were never popular then 
and certainly have had time since to be largely 
forgotten. 

Wilson's review of these volumes appeared in 1836 
in the January and February numbers of * Blackwood. ' 
It repeated the same eulogies of the excellence of these 
dramas which had been current among the critics 
of Joanna Baillie from the beginning of the century. 
He felt that Scott had been justified in linking her 
name with that of Shakespeare. He contrasted the 
superiority of her work with the inferiority of what 
was then being produced. He gave vent to his usual 
lamentation about the decay of poetry which had 
followed the passing away of the great authors of the 
Georgian era. ^' Where are the young poets?" he said 
with a sigh — at least he said he sighed. Dim in his 
eyes and somewhat small were the few luminaries that 
were then in ascension. Poetical ability, it was true, 
was not then entirely lacking; but it was not poetical 
ability of a high grade. On the strength of these 
introductory remarks, he went out of his way in his 
second article to rebuke the folly of the little band of 
admirers whose belief in the greatness of Tennyson 
was at last beginning to make itself distinctly felt. 
Though it could in no sense be said to extend and 
increase perceptibly the sale of his works, it was 
sufficient to arouse the hostility of those who denied 
his claims. It affected Wilson notably. It might 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 473 

almost be said indeed that the second of these articles 
appears to have been written about as much for the 
disparagement of Tennyson as it was for the glorifi- 
cation of Joanna Baillie and incidentally of himself. 
. ''Not but that there is poetical genius," wrote 
Wilson, ''among our young aspirants — the Tennysons, 
the Trenches, the Alfords, and others, whom we have 
delighted to praise ; and whom we should rejoice to see 
shining as fixed stars of the first magnitude in the 
poetical firmament. Fixed stars of the first magnitude I 
Why, it was debated in a spouting society at Cam- 
bridge— 'Is Alfred Tennyson a GREAT POET'! 
Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, and Wordsworth are 
Great Poets ; and it might have been thought that the 
mere mention of such names would have silenced the 
most flatulent of all the praters. The 'bare imagi- 
nation' of such a debate must bring the blush of 
shame on the face of every man of common sense; 
and Mr. Tennyson himself must have wept with 
vexation at the ineffable folly of his friends who 
maintained the affirmative. Let him lay to heart the 
kind counsels of Christopher North, who alone has 
done justice to his fine faculties, and the laurel crown 
will erelong be placed on his head. He has yet written 
but some beautiful verses — a few very charming 
compositions, that are in truth little poems — not great 
ones — his feeling is exquisite, and so is his fancy — 
but oh! how feeble too often his Thought! Feeble 
because he is a wilful fribble — flattery has made him 
so — but would he but scorn his sycophants, his strength 



474 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

would be restored, and nature would be glad to see 
him, what she designed him to be, a true poet. ' ' 

This quotation is noteworthy for the grudging 
recognition it gave of the ability of the man it per- 
functorily praised. Wilson could not deny Tennyson 's 
genius as a poet. He was too thoroughly sensitive to 
intellectual beauty to commit so gross an absurdity 
as that, even with the resentment he continued to 
cherish at the provocation he had received. Still his 
words plainly imply also that he was disposed to 
regard him as a poet of inferior rank, and that such 
he would always remain. His place was among the 
**true" poets, not among the great ones. Wilson 
honestly believed that he was doing Tennyson sufficient 
honor by putting him in the same class with Alford, 
with Trench, and several others whom he included 
under the general name of the Young Poets. In a 
certain way and to a certain extent, he approved of 
all of them; but that any one of their number had 
furnished evidence of being a great poet, even any 
greater poet than himself for example, had probably 
never occurred to him as conceivable. He has left us 
no doubt of his feelings on this point; a little later 
in this same article he made his state of mind evident. 
* * To speak the plain truth at once, ' ' he went on to say, 
''not one of our young poets — and some of them are 
full fledged — has taken a single sustained flight higher 
than the cock on the spire of a village church. Not 
one of them has written a poem that has taken posses- 
sion of the nation's heart. Each bardling has his 
admirers, who commit bits of him to a treacherous 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 475 

or tenacious memory — but when they quote a response 
of their oracle, it falls dead on the ears of the ground- 
lings — and all are groundlings, in their estimation, 
who will not fall down and worship such despicable 
gods.' " 

Though this language was general, there was but 
one specific application of it possible. There was no 
person whom the critic could have had in mind but 
Tennyson. No one but he of these younger poets could 
boast of a body of professed admirers. In censuring 
them for the zeal they displayed, Wilson might well 
have remembered his own position a quarter of a 
century before. At that time he was himself one of 
a very small band who celebrated to an indifferent 
or contemptuous world the greatness of Wordsworth, 
What he now said of Tennyson would have been then 
true of the writer who had aroused his own early 
enthusiasm. No poem of Wordsworth at the period 
Wilson began to chant his praises had taken possession 
of the nation's heart. The lines which that poet's 
admirers then committed to memory fell dead upon 
the ears of the groundlings, or were more frequently 
made the subject of derision. He had lived to see this 
all changed. He had lived to find Wordsworth's finest 
pieces not merely cherished by multitudes of readers, 
but unqualified praise bestowed upon his prosiest 
performances. 

Still later in this same article Wilson unconsciously 
revealed how heavily Tennyson lay on his mind and 
how much he continued to be irritated by the admira- 
tion entertained and expressed for the poet by the 



476 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

men of Cambridge. It occurs in the midst of the 
laudations with which the writers in ' Blackwood ' were 
everlastingly bedaubing themselves and the assump- 
tion they persistently maintained that the reputation 
of authors was not so much the result of their own 
personal achievement as of the way in which they 
were spoken of in this periodical. Wilson discoursed 
about the Young Poets and what he individually had 
done for them. *'Were it not for Us," he wrote, 
** where would they be? Nowhere. Out of Cambridge 
and Cockneydom, how many scores of Christian 
creatures have ever seen either of Alfred Tennyson *s 
Volumes? Not fourscore. In Maga many of his best 
compositions have been perused with delight by tens 
of thousands — and as sympathy is what every poet 
most fervently desires, how deep ought to be — and 
how deep must be — his gratitude to Christopher 
North ! * Fit audience find though few' was a sentiment 
all very well at the time — for the Poet of Paradise 
Lost. But a young lyrical poet of the present day 
cannot, do what he will, be satisfied with the applauses 
of a coterie of under-graduates, though graced with 
the countenance of the Wooden Spoon of the year, 
shining in the gloss of novelty almost like a horn. 
He longs for a 'waking empire wide as drearns,' and 
he finds it in the most beneficent of perennials whose 
smile is fame, and whose praise is immortality. ' ' 

For the sake of glorifying himself Wilson in these 
remarks had taken the pains not to worry about exact- 
ness of statement. There are those who would call 
it deliberate misrepresentation. The clientele of 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 477 

Tennyson was assuredly at that time small ; but it was 
altogether larger and mder than the critic gave the 
impression of its being. It was made up, too, of men 
who besides being of superior ability, were coming to 
have that superiority widely recognized. Such persons 
were not in the habit of going to any periodical what- 
ever in order to have their opinions formed or formu- 
lated. Their very independence contributed to the 
growth of their influence. A much more reprehensible 
parsimony in the use of truth was perceptible in the 
assertion that the readers of 'Blackwood's Magazine' 
had seen the poet's best compositions. The only 
criticism found in it had been of the volume of 1830. 
Not the slightest notice had been taken of the much 
superior work found in the volume of 1832. So far 
from a single poem it contained having been quoted 
there, not even so much as an allusion had ever been 
made to the volume at all or to anything of merit 
appearing in it. But the passages are interesting as 
showing how keenly the man who was so ready to 
criticise others felt any blow that was aimed at himself 
in return. It is evident also that he had an uneasy 
consciousness that Tennyson, however unwilling his 
critic was to concede him greatness, was in possession 
of powers outside of his own capacity of expression. 

This latter state of mind was more than indicated, 
it was openly confessed in a review which appeared 
a few months later of a work of Alford's, entitled 
'The School of the Heart.' It is noteworthy that in 
this review, while Wilson affected to rank Tennyson 
among the other Cambridge poets who were his 



478 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

contemporaries, his critical sense was too keen to 
allow him to perpetrate a blunder of that kind unquali- 
fiedly. He recognized and admitted that the work of 
this particular author was essentially different from 
that of the rest, though it might be hard to tell whether 
in his opinion it was a difference for the better or the 
worse. He declared that in reading the new poems 
that were coming out he felt as if they had been written 
by himself. They reflected dimly or clearly his own 
emotions. ''This may be the secret cause," he wrote, 
"of the delight which we derive from almost every 
publication, whether in prose or verse, called new by 
the public, and fondly believed to be so by the nominal 
author. It is a mirror dimly or clearly reflecting our- 
selves. There have been some exceptions — and among 
them perhaps the most conspicuous were the Poems, 
chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. They contained 
numerous beauties which we feel to be original and 
out of our sphere ; and on our expressing our delighted 
admiration of them, we gave vent to the most unselfish 
and disinterested feelings that could expand a critic's 
breast. Their follies were so peculiarly his own, that 
in printing them, almost without comment, we left 
them to speak for themselves, and they did so to the 
general scorn. "^ 

The reader may well hesitate in accepting without 
qualification the assertion that a criticism of particular 
pieces which designates them as ''drivel," "miserable 
drivel," "more dismal drivel," "distinguished silli- 
ness," and similar summary expressions of opinion 

1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine,' May, 1836, Vol. XXXIX, p. 578. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 479 

can have a just title to be regarded as printing them 
almost without comment. This was true as regards 
space, but can hardly plead for itself ambiguity of 
condemnation. Wilson's further and final statement 
serves as an introduction to the unconscious revelation 
which he was now to make of how much he had been 
stung by the lines which had been addressed to 
Christopher North in the volume of 1832. Years had 
gone by since their appearance. Had he been really 
indifferent to them, they would have been forgotten. 
Had he received the poet's apology for them in the 
spirit in which it was sent, they would have been 
forgiven. But he was now to show that the bite of the 
midget, as he now styled it, which he characterized 
as impotent, had been singularly effective and painful. 
It is possible indeed that his feelings may have been 
further irritated by allusions to it by his enemies; 
though, so far as I am aware, no evidence exists of 
any such fact. 

After glorifying as we have seen, the nobility and 
impartiality of the course he had followed in reference 
to the poet, Wilson entered into the particulars of his 
own grievance. "For conduct so judicious and 
benign," he wrote, "Mr. Tennyson commissioned a 
midge to madden and murder us with its fatal sting. 
A billion midges attacking the face and hands of one 
old man on a summer twilight might annoy him 
sorely, and drive him from his avenue into his house. 
But one midge, the first and last of his race, could 
not rationally expect to send Christopher North to 
Hades. . . . We survived the onslaught of the unhappy 



480 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

little insect, who impotently expired ' even in the sound 
himself had made,' to afflict, on the earliest oppor- 
tunity, the ingenious lyrist with our intolerable pane- 
gyrics. We are not without hopes of driving him 
absolutely mad; for his genius is unquestionable, and 
no comfort he may derive from our ridicule will 
suffice to make his life endurable under the opprobrium 
of our praise. True that Wordsworth, Scott, Cole- 
ridge, Southey, Campbell, Crabbe, Byron, Moore, 
Bowles, Montgomery, and Elliott have received 
kindly what Alfred Tennyson 'with sputtering noise 
rejected'; but they are gluttons, he an Epicure: 

He on honey dew hath fed, 
And breathed the air of Paradise." 

Never under an affectation of jovial indifference did 
a critic betray keener sensitiveness. The wound 
inflicted by the bite of the midget had manifestly begun 
to fester. After years had passed, Wilson continued 
to pay an attention to the little squib directed against 
himself which it had not deserved at the time of its 
appearance when it was fresh in memory. Yet his 
perspicacity did not fail him. Inflamed as were his 
feelings, he fully recognized that Tennyson was a 
writer of a new school. He was, as he admitted, out 
of his own sphere. His language may have been 
ironical ; but whether the words expressed his genuine 
sentiments or not — and they pretty surely did express 
them — there can be no question that unwittingly or 
wittingly he had spoken the truth. The poetry of 
Alford or of Trench which he had reviewed favorably 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 481 

was not essentially different in character from the 
elegant but somewhat vapid verse which he himself 
had written. But in making a critical estimate of 
Tennyson he was dealing not only with a new writer 
but with a new force. Him it was not in his power 
to appreciate fully. He could venture to assume that 
he himself could have written the productions of the 
other bards whom he had mentioned with praise; but 
it hardly needed his own disclaimer that he never 
could have fancied himself the author of 'Poems, 
chiefly Lyrical.' The real difficulty with Tennyson in 
Wilson's eyes was that he not only had more genius 
than it was quite proper to possess, but it was genius 
of a different kind from that which his critic was 
disposed to approve. 

Wilson had said that in spite of the lines addressed 
to Christopher North he had continued to afflict 
Tennyson with his panegyrics. If so, he must have 
confined them to his conversation : he has been careful 
not to put them in print. Nor furthermore did he 
content himself with casting ridicule upon the claims 
made for Tennyson by his partisans. He proceeded 
to set up a rival of his own. There is something 
extraordinary in the fatuousness he displayed, when we 
bear in mind that, when he was acting untrammelled 
and unprejudiced, his literary appreciation was keen 
and his literary discernment was usually trustworthy. 
About this time he fancied that he had discovered a 
new poet — a poet altogether superior to any of those 
of the modern generation, whom he was now learning 



482 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to term disdainfully the Young Poets. The opinion 
of his merits was contained in the leading article of 
* Blackwood's Magazine' for November, 1837.^ It was 
entitled ^Poetry by Our New Contributor.' Him he 
lauded in the highest terms; from him he quoted 
several pieces. According to the critic, one of them 
which was on a French subject surpassed everything 
found in the recently published 'French Eevolution' 
of Carlyle, whose name somewhat strangely he spelled 
Carlisle. But it was not till the number for May of 
the following year that he pronounced definitely the 
superiority of this new contributor to all his contem- 
poraries. This critical estimate was given in an article 
entitled 'Our Two Vases.' 

In this article he gathered together the poetical 
pieces sent which he specially approved. With them 
was conjoined a running comment of his own. ''Who 
are the best," he wrote, "of our rising or risen Poets, 
since the burst-out of Byron f We leave the older 
Heroes by themselves — living or dead — from Words- 
worth to Hunt. Moir, Motherwell, Tennyson, Alford, 
Trench — any more? Knowles, Beddoes, Taylor, Tal- 
fourd, Bulwer, are Dramatists — and though as unlike 
to one another as may well be, belong to another 
Class — and must be treated accordingly, should we 
ever find ourselves in a promising mood for such a 
Series. But of the Poets aforesaid, think ye the very 
best — ^whoever he may be — could have written the 
following stanzas — ^by Archaeus? Could he — and if he 

1 Vol. XLII, pp. 573-598. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 483 

can — will he write something as good! We opine 'tis 
a solemn strain worthy of one of the laurel-crowned 

Serene Creators of immortal things."^ 

After this glowing introduction followed a poem 
entitled 'Lady Jane Grey.' It was a very good piece 
of work of the highly superior prize-poem order. This 
was the production of the much-vaunted new con- 
tributor who wrote under the signature of Archasus. 
In the magazine of the following month this poem 
was followed by another from the same author called 
'Aphrodite.' With it Wilson was more than delighted. 
He placed but little restraint upon the expression of 
his praise. This, he said, ''places Archaeus among the 
POETS OF ENGLAND. ' '^ The clevatiou to which the critic 
had raised him was indicated by printing the last three 
words in small caps. Who, it may be asked, was this 
new contributor, before whom Tennyson, of whom 
Wilson knew too much, and Browning, of whom he 
apparently knew nothing at all, were to fade into 
insignificance? He was an author whose memory has 
been mainly preserved, so far as it has been preserved, 
by what others have written about him, not by any- 
thing he wrote himself. It was John Sterling. The 
praise of Wilson was grateful at the time to the man 
whom death had already marked for his own; but it 
never lifted him into any public recognition even then 
and it has assuredly not done so since. To speak of 

iVol. XLIII, p. 698. 

2 June, 1838, Vol. XLIII, p. 735. 



484 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Mm as a poet alongside of Tennyson was criticism run 
mad. 

The feeling about Tennyson which had now laid hold 
of Wilson was again displayed in an article which 
appeared in April of the following year/ It was 
entitled 'Christopher in his Alcove.' In this he 
brought together a number of poems written by those 
he called Our Young Poets. Special emphasis was 
laid upon the our in contrast to those whom before 
and afterwards he derisively termed the Young Poets, 
when he did not choose to call them ''sumphs." His 
remarks are of interest and value for another reason. 
They confirm the statement previously made that a 
school of writers were consciously founding themselves 
upon Tennyson even at that early date, when his 
reputation could scarcely be said to have spread out- 
side of a comparatively limited circle, and when he 
was slightingly spoken of by the ordinary professional 
critic. ''All our young poets," wrote Wilson, "are 
fine, unaffected fellows, full of force and fire ; and they 
would all, every mother's son of them, disdain them- 
selves, did their consciences convict them of the sin 
of a single stanza, indited purposely to mystify some 
worthless truism, through the embroidered veil of its 
envelopment of gorgeous and gaudy words. The 
SuMPHS are all now of the Shelley, or of the Tennyson 
school — and, hear, heavens! and give ear, earth! 
disciples of Wokdsworth ! Surely the soles of the feet 
of at least half a score of them must now be tingling, 
prescient of the bastinado." Wilson had not yet 

1 Vol. XLV, p. 546. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 485 

become conscious of the fact — he was at a later period 
to learn it — that a generation was coming on which 
was to pay little heed to the blows inflicted by the 
bastinade or the crutch he wielded. 

This was the state of mind in regard to Tennyson 
of the most influential critic of the fourth decade of 
the nineteenth century. In the review of Joanna 
Baillie in which began this series of attacks upon the 
poet, occurred the following passage in the general 
bespattering of praise which Wilson was wont to give 
to his own influence. There was indeed — at least there 
had been — a certain justification for what he said 
about it, though it was hardly from his lips that it 
could come with propriety. ' ' Christopher North, ' ' he 
wrote, ''is the tutor, the guardian, and the patron of 
the young poets. As they reverence him, they pros- 
per — wanting the light of his countenance, they sicken 
in the shade, and prematurely die. But none who 
deserve it want the light of the countenance of the old 
man benign." These words attracted the attention 
of another reviewer who was at that very time 
proclaiming in the columns of 'The New Monthly 
Magazine' the merits of a young and but little-known 
poet whom he placed by the side of Shelley and 
Coleridge and Wordsworth. This reviewer was John 
Forster. He expostulated with his ' ' esteemed contem- 
porary," as he termed the critic of 'Blackwood's 
Magazine.' Accepting him at his own valuation, he 
called upon him to redeem his omission of a poet who 
was both young and great. Why had he not mentioned 
Mr. Browning, he asked? "Here is a young poet," 



486 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

he said, ''or rather — for greatness takes no account 
of age — a great poet, and his book has been buzzed 
at by the critics, and Christopher North has remained 
silent." This could not continue, he was confident; 
the reason that it existed at all he suggested. ''The 
old man eloquent," Forster went on to say, "prepares 
himself for a discourse on greatness in poetry, as 
distinguished from the 'small luminaries now in 
ascension'; and the illustration shall be 'Robert 
Browning. ' ' '^ But Wilson was neither moved by the 
flattery nor affected by the appeal. If indeed Tenny- 
son's poetry was not in the range of his adequate 
appreciation, we can easily understand what would 
be his attitude towards that of Eobert Browning. No 
criticism of that writer ever appeared in that magazine 
while Wilson was connected with it. Not even his 
name can be found in it for some time after a good 
deal of his best work had been produced. 

Wilson had one final opportunity to demonstrate 
beyond question that resentment for a foolish attack 
could not merely blind his critical judgment but cause 
him to display a crowning ineptitude. The occasion 
came to him in 1842. It was duly improved. The first 
part of that year had seen the publication of Tenny- 
son's two volumes. Of them he took no notice what- 
ever. So far were they from being reviewed at the 
time in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' not even was the 
name of their author to be found for a long while 
anywhere in its pages, though it was now beginning 
to be heard on the tongue of every cultivated man. 

1 Vol. XLVT, p. 308, March, 1836. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 487 

But in the latter part of this same year appeared 
Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Eome.' From the outset 
the work was the greatest of successes. It was pub- 
lished in October. Before the end of December it 
had gone into a second edition, speedily to be followed 
by a third the following year. These were the 
precursors of innumerable others. It deserved all 
the success it won. Nor is it any denial of its excel- 
lence to assert that no competent critic would now 
pretend to put it on a level with the poetry contained 
in Tennyson's two volumes. Under ordinary condi- 
tions there would have been no one quicker than 
Wilson to recognize that, however good it was, it was 
nevertheless a work on a lower plane of achievement. 
But there were then a few critics who ranked it higher. 
Chief among these was Christopher North. By no one 
was it welcomed with more enthusiasm than by him. 

Wilson had been a political opponent of Macaulay. 
In some, too, of the literary controversies in which the 
future historian had been engaged, the critic had taken 
him sharply to task. But in the number for December, 
1842,^ he rose, at least in his own opinion, above all 
purely partisan considerations. He sang a paean in 
praise of the 'Lays of Ancient Rome' which was so 
remarkable for the fervor and extravagance of its 
eulogy that it ought to be printed alongside of 
Matthew Arnold's later disparagement. But though 
the fact is forgotten now, and perhaps was not much 
noticed then, it was equally remarkable for its oblique 
depreciation of Tennyson. There was really no 

1 Vol. LII, p. 802. 



488 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

occasion to go out of his way to attack compositions 
so entirely different in character and subject from 
those of Macaulay that there was hardly a common 
ground for comparison. Yet this was the very course 
taken. Tennyson's name, to be sure, was not men- 
tioned in Wilson's article. He may not indeed have 
been the only one the critic had in mind; but it is 
indisputable that it was he who was the one prin- 
cipally aimed at in the passages celebrating the 
superiority of Macaulay to the Young Poets, as he 
still continued disdainfully to designate them. These 
were spoken of as belonging to the Small Beer School. 
''The beer," he said, ''may, like that of Trinity, be 
a very pretty beer, but it ought to learn to take things 
quietly, and be less ambitious." 

"For a good many years," said Wilson later in the 
article, "have we been praising the Young Poets — 
not without a sense of the ludicrous, patting their 
puerile heads. . . . Our Young Poets, as Fanny 
Kemble used to say of herself in her Journal, potter, 
potter, potter, and all about themselves; morning, 
noon, and night, they potter, potter, potter all about 
their own dear, sweet, consumptive, passionate, small, 
infantile selves — trying at times to look fierce, nay 
facetious — and in the very whirlwind of passion, 
sufficiently tropical to lift up a curl tastefully disposed 
on their organ of identity three inches broad, are they 
seen picking obsolete-looking words out of a pocket 
edition of Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary." This 
and much more like this can be found in the article 
which celebrated the superiority of Macaulay to these 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 489 

young poets. It is a striking illustration of the want 
of discernment which in the case of Tennyson had 
come to overcloud the perspicacity of him who was 
generally regarded as the foremost literary critic of 
the time. It reminds one of the sort of judgment 
passed on Shakespeare by the criticasters of the period 
following the Restoration. 

This however was the last outburst of a like character 
on the part of Wilson. As time went on a public 
opinion was forming about the poet which he with 
all his recklessness and hardihood dared no longer 
defy — at all events his publisher did not. Henceforth 
Wilson did not venture to speak of Tennyson in the 
jaunty way in which he had at first patronized him or, 
to use his own phrase, patted his head. Nor can there 
be much doubt that susceptible as the critic was to 
literary achievement, he could not easily refrain from 
admiring the excellence of much of the work the poet 
had accomplished. Scattered through the pages of 
the magazine during the years following the appear- 
ance of the volumes of 1842 are a few references to 
Tennyson which are fairly complimentary in their 
character, though none are unduly so. The highest 
published compliment Wilson ever paid the poet can 
be found in what is on the whole a favorable review 
of Miss Barrett's works. ^ This appeared in November, 
1844. While making as a matter of course his usual 
remarks about the existing dearth of poetical genius, 
Wilson gave to her productions high and discerning 
praise. He did not neglect to point out her faults 

1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine,' Vol. LVI, pp. 621-639. 



490 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

but he treated them merely as blemishes. He further- 
more spoke of 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship' as belong- 
ing to the Tennysonian school. This was a discovery 
of his not much relished by the authoress. While he 
accorded the poem a certain amount of praise, he 
declared it as ''deficient throughout in that finished 
elegance of style which distinguishes the work of the 
great artist from whom it is imitated." Tennyson 
had not been advanced by him to the rank of a great 
poet : but he had got along far enough to be recognized 
as a great artist. 

This was the sole instance in which Wilson wantoned 
into anything which looked like extravagance of 
admiration. During these years he gave a grudging 
recognition to the genius of Tennyson; but he never 
abandoned the belief that while he was what he had 
once called him, a true poet, he was by no means a 
great one. His criticisms throughout furnish one of 
the most striking exemplifications of the fact that a 
man brought up in one school of poetry is often found 
absolutely incapable of appreciating the greatness of 
a writer belonging to a new school. Wilson never 
ceased to deplore the falling off in literary achieve- 
ment from the men of the Georgian era of the men 
belonging to the Victorian era. "After Scott's time," 
he wrote in 1844, "till the middle of the nineteenth 
century not a single novelist ; after the death of Byron, 
not a poet!" The belles-lettres in his opinion were 
utterly in abeyance. "As regards the state of litera- 
ture," he remarked in another place in this same 
article, "take out your pencils . . . and make out a 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 491 

list of the works published during the last five years, 
likely to be known, even by name, a hundred years 
hence. "^ Wilson ignored the poems of Tennyson; he 
was apparently ignorant of the existence of Browning ; 
he seemed to forget the lays of Macaulay over which 
he had not long before waxed enthusiastic. But not 
to speak of other authors in prose, three novels of 
Dickens — 'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'The Old Curiosity 
Shop,' and 'Barnaby Budge' — had appeared during 
the five years preceding as well as a good deal of the 
early work of Thackeray, though that writer had not 
then obtained a general recognition of his greatness. 
Fortunate it is for most criticism that its verdicts and 
conclusions sleep unknown and undisturbed in the 
forgotten pages of contemporary periodicals. 

Yet Wilson's attitude towards the writers who were 
coming forward to take the place of their elders was 
not different from that of many of those who belonged 
to his own generation or the one immediately succeed- 
ing. Insensibility to Tennyson's claims in particular 
was far from being a characteristic peculiar to himself. 
But the sins of others were largely due to pure 
unadulterated ignorance. They knew little, or often 
absolutely nothing of the literature produced by the 
men of the younger generation. It is quite manifest 
from his biography that Macaulay, at the time just 
spoken of and later, had never looked at a poem of 
Tennyson's. It was not till towards the close of his 
life that he tells us that the reading of 'Guinevere' 
in the 'Idylls of the King' brought tears to his eyes. 

1 'Blackwood's Magazine,' May, 1844, Vol. LV, p. 560. 



492 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

But this was not so with Wilson. With him it was 
not lack of knowledge, but lack of appreciation; or 
rather the disposition not to appreciate which for 
years he had been sedulously cultivating. He was 
perpetually complaining of the prevailing dearth of 
poetical genius. The men of to-day were in his eyes 
very respectable men; but it was useless to compare 
them with the men of the immediate past. Wilson 
never could be persuaded that the best of the poets 
then on the stage were equal to the poorest of the 
earlier generation. In 1844 a German traveller records 
an interview he had had with him while in Scotland. 
*'It seemed to me," he wrote in his report of it, "that 
the Professor, though cheerful, spoke rather hope- 
lessly of the rising English literature — and especially 
of the young poets.'" To this view his own direct 
utterances conform. ''Poetry appears for the time 
wellnigh extinguished," he wrote in 1845. "We have 
some charming ballads from Tennyson ; some touching 
lines from Miss Barret ; but where are the successors 
of Scott and Byron, of Campbell and SoutheyT'^ A 
good deal can be said for the introduction of the first 
two names; but the bathos of critical inbecility is 
reached when Campbell and above all Southey are 
reckoned superior to Tennyson and Browning. 

This doleful state of mind continued on Wilson's 
part to the day of his death. As late as April, 1850, 
he expressed the same sentiment of modified despair 
in a review of 'Festus.' "We seem to have amongst 

I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' October, 1844, Vol. XI, p. 642. 
2 ' Blackwood 's Magazine,' September, 1845, Vol. LVIII, p. 341. 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 493 

us good poets still," he wrote, ''but they have ceased 
to produce good poems. We have much genuine 
poetry diffused through our literature, and not a new 
work of art added to our possessions."^ But as time 
went on, it became apparent to the publisher of 
'Blackwood's Magazine,' if it did not to its leading 
contributor, that it would no longer do for a periodical 
of its literary pretensions to persist in ignoring the 
claims to consideration of the one man who was daily 
becoming more and more the favorite of the public. 
It could not afford to content itself with mere refer- 
ences to him either depreciatory or laudatory. He 
was a new force that had to be reckoned with. He 
could neither be pooh-poohed nor patronized. The 
maintenance of silence on its part would have no effect 
upon the reputation of Tennyson but would have a 
good deal upon that of the magazine. So in April, 
1849, seven years after the publication of the two 
volumes of poems, and a little more than a year after 
the publication of 'The Princess,' came out a belated 
review of both productions.^ It was on the whole very 
complimentary. In fact such was getting to be the 
temperament of the public that it was becoming a 
somewhat risky procedure for either reviewer or 
review to be otherwise. There was accordingly a 
respectful tone preserved throughout towards the poet, 
even where an unfavorable opinion was expressed of 
particular pieces. 

1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine,' Vol. LXVII, p. 416. 

2 Ibid., Vol. LXV, pp. 453-467. 



494 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

But along with its laudatory passages the review 
was a good deal disfigured by the offensive assumption 
of that highly superior attitude on the part of the 
critic who makes it a point to find unendurable what 
the vast majority of cultivated men have learned to 
love. The verdict, however, pronounced on particular 
pieces shows conclusively that Wilson had no hand 
in the article either in the way of composition or 
correction. Its opinions were directly contrary to 
those he had previously expressed. He had been 
enthusiastic about the 'Ode to Memory' which the 
general voice has always regarded as one of the finest 
poems of Tennyson's first volume. He had described 
it as eminently beautiful. Not so felt the succeeding 
critic in the same magazine. In one place he spoke 
of it as incomprehensible. In another he described 
it as a poem ''which craves to be extinguished, which 
ought in charity to be forgotten." He succinctly 
described it as an utter failure. "We cannot read it 
again," he continued, "to enable us to speak quite 
positively, but we do not think there is a single 
redeeming line in the whole of it." 'Mariana,' too, 
which Wilson had quoted in its entirety for its 
profound pathos, was condemned as was also ' Oriana, ' 
which he had characterized as perhaps the most 
beautiful of Tennyson's ballad compositions. There 
is always a certain interest in the resuscitation of 
these dead and buried specimens of asinine criticism. 
For this reason it may be well to rescue from the 
grave to which they have been consigned the remarks 



CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 495 

here found on one of the most famous of the poems 
of the second volume which Wilson never reviewed. 
In it Tennyson is spoken of as ''torturing himself to 
unite old balladry with modern sentiment in his Lady 
of Shallott, forever rhyming with that detested town 
of Camelot." 

For such exhibitions of crass incompetence of 
appreciation Wilson can be fully absolved. But he 
never broke his silence about Tennyson. We talk of 
the sensitiveness of authors. Can anything be shown 
surpassing this display of it by him whom no small 
number of cultivated readers looked upon as the first 
critic of his time ? Wilson did not die until 1854. His 
connection with 'Blackwood's Magazine,' though 
naturally becoming less close with the advance of age, 
did not cease entirely until 1852, when the last con- 
tribution from his pen came out in its September 
number. During the half-score years which preceded 
his retirement the fame of Tennyson had been steadily 
rising and broadening. New editions of the 'Poems* 
of 1842 were coming out with increasing frequency. 
The whole English-speaking world had their eyes fixed 
upon everything and anything which came from his 
pen. 'The Princess' of 1847 had been followed by 
the 'In Memoriam' of 1850. The publication of the 
latter volume had been the great literary event of the 
year. Acclaim practically universal had attended a 
few months later the appointment of its author to the 
poet laureateship. But during all these years inci- 
dental references to Tennyson — and they not numer- 



496 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

OTIS— are all that the once catholic critic thought fit 
to make. To the very last Wilson did all that lay in 
his power to justify the application to himself of the 
epithets of ''crusty, rusty, musty, fusty Christopher,'* 
by which he had been designated. 



CHAPTER XIX 
TENNYSON'S PENSION AND BULWER'S ATTACK 

Frequently lias it been said that the success of the 
'Poems' of 1842 was both immediate and unmeasured; 
that Tennyson leaped at once into universal accept- 
ance. Such an assertion would be very far from 
conforming to fact. The truth is that the growth of 
Tennyson's reputation after the appearance of these 
volumes, while in one sense rapid, was in another 
gradual. It could not well have been otherwise. Both 
in thought and expression his poetic utterance was 
widely different from anything which had gone before. 
If it had a resemblance to the utterance of any preced- 
ing poet, it was to that of Keats ; and at that time, so 
far as the mass of even educated men was concerned, 
Keats had not yet becomie a potent factor in English 
literature. The poetry of Tennyson accordingly, as 
it was of a distinctly new type, was in its nature 
revolutionary; and like all things revolutionary had 
to fight its way to general acceptance. It found at 
once, it is true, a large body of admirers, who were 
not at all under the bondage of the past. But those 
who had been brought up in the admiration and enjoy- 
ment of the utterance of other poetic schools — and 
necessarily to this class belonged a large body of 
highly cultivated men — were disposed to look askance 



498 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

upon this new aspirant who had a most distinct manner 
of his own and a manner to which they were not in 
the slightest degree accustomed. Their prejudices 
gave way slowly. They were reluctant to concede that 
a new literary dynasty had been established, that a 
new literary monarch had arisen. To him they were 
little disposed to pay their allegiance. 

There is no doubt that men of the old school were 
a good deal astounded by the welcome which Tenny- 
son's poetry had received and by the enthusiasm with 
which his partisans hailed him. They were usually 
puzzled by it and occasionally made indignant. These 
poems, so highly praised, did not impress them favor- 
ably in most cases ; in some cases they impressed them 
very unfavorably. Readers of Thackeray will recall 
how amazed and bewildered was Colonel Newcome by 
the opinions he heard expressed on his return to 
England after thirty years spent in India. They were 
not the opinions of his time. He learned from the 
men who were his son's companions that young Keats 
was a genius to be estimated in future days with young 
Raphael, and that a young gentleman at Cambridge 
who had lately published two volumes of verses might 
take rank with the greatest poets of all. He tried in 
vain to construe 'CEnone.' Though he understood 
'Ulysses,' he could not see any sense in the prodigious 
laudations it received. Thackeray, writing in the 
sixth decade of the century, can be forgiven for his 
anachronism; for the time of this part of his novel 
is that of the fourth decade and one of the two works 
he specifies and all the sentiments he records belong 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 499 

to the fifth. But for that last period they represent 
accurately the feelings prevalent among the men of 
the younger generation and the bewilderment and 
frequently the disquiet of those of the older. 

Still, all great work in art steadily rises in estima- 
tion under constant examination. The converts that 
Tennyson made, he kept. They belonged, furthermore, 
to the class whose influence was growing steadily ; and 
the effect of their appreciation showed itself in a 
rapidly enlarging circle of admirers. Before the 
earnest advocacy of these, indifference and hostility 
rapidly gave way. The changing attitude of this band 
of readers who began with a prejudice against the 
poet can be seen faithfully reflected in the correspond- 
ence of Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters re-echo at 
first all the critical platitudes about Tennyson which 
had been current during the preceding ten years of 
silence. '*Do you know Alfred Tennyson's poems?" 
she wrote to one of her friends on the eighth of June, 
1842. ''They are in the last degree mannered and 
obscure (I always doubt if these dark people know 
their own meaning), still some of his things, especially 
'Mariana in the Moated Grange,' have great merit, 
so that I have been pleased at finding one of the 
best of the new poems taken avowedly ' from a pastoral 
of Miss Mitford 's,' 'Dora Creswell.' " Before a 
year had gone by, this patronizing appreciation had 
changed into enthusiastic admiration. She then had 
learned to prefer Tennyson to any poet of the age. 
On the twenty-seventh of February, 1843, she commu- 
nicated to this same friend certain facts about the 



500 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

success of his work. * ' Dear Miss Barrett, ' ' she wrote, 
''whose health is better, has a volume ready, but no 
bookseller will incur the risk of publishing poetry. 
Moxon says that he has lost by every one except Alfred 
Tennyson ; to be sure, the exception proves a growing 
taste for high poetry, for I think his three lovely 
volumes the most delicious that have appeared for 
many years. Indeed I know nothing in modern times 
equal to 'Mariana,' 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 
'Locksley Hall.' " 

If this remark of Moxon be accurate as well as 
accurately reported, and not subject to that modifica- 
tion which it is frequently desirable to make in the 
statements of the most scrupulous publisher, it does 
give a somewhat gloomy view of the fondness for 
verse then prevalent; for Moxon had brought out or 
was bringing out the works of the most eminent poets 
of the day; at least of the generation just going off 
the stage, like Wordsworth and Campbell and Rogers, 
as well as of the younger men like Henry Taylor and 
Trench and Browning. His views of what constituted 
success could indeed have been hardly deemed extrava- 
gant, for the edition he had just about disposed of 
consisted, as we have seen, of but eight hundred copies. 
The sale, to be sure, was steadily going on; yet it 
took two years more to exhaust the thousand copies 
of the second edition. As a consequence of so doing, 
it became necessary to bring out a third, which 
appeared duly in the middle of June, 1845. This 
consisted of an unrecorded but manifestly larger 
number of copies. In July, 1846, Browning wrote to 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 501 

the woman soon to become Ms wife that he had been 
that morning with Moxon. The publisher told him 
that he had sold fifteen hundred of Tennyson's 'Poems' 
during the year and that he was about to bring out 
another edition in consequence.^ 

But while such a number was respectable, and even 
seems large, as the sale of poetry of a high grade went 
then, while indeed it proved that the reputation of 
Tennyson had already begun to overshadow that of 
his contemporaries, it is obvious that at this rate it 
was hopeless to entertain expectations of pecuniary 
support from that source. As if this were not enough, 
a new embarrassment was now added to the poet's 
situation. His means had been far from ample to 
start on ; but such as they were, they had now become 
largely dissipated by an injudicious investment. He 
had been led to take part in one of those alluring 
enterprises which, occasionally crowned with great 
success, ordinarily result in dismal failure. This 
instance proved no exception to the general rule. 
Resident near the family at High Beech was a 
physician, a certain Dr. Matthew Allen, described by 
Carlyle as a ''speculative, hopeful, earnest-frothy 
man." He had become interested in a scheme which 
he had invented or adopted for making oak furniture 
by machinery. The enterprise was to be both philan- 
thropic and pecuniarily profitable, two results which 
are not often easy to harmonize, at least at the outset. 
It was expected that by the process such furniture 
could be put within the means of all, besides securing 

1 ' Browning Letters, ' Vol. II, p. 335. 



502 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the fortunes of those concerned in promoting it. In 
this enterprise the enthusiastic physician succeeded 
in gaining the co-operation of the Tennysons. Espe- 
cially was this true of the poet. He invested in it the 
proceeds of a little estate in Grasby, Lincolnshire, and 
a legacy of five hundred pounds left him by an aunt 
of Arthur Hallam. The scheme collapsed entirely, 
necessarily with disastrous results to Tennyson's 
means. The blow was to some extent broken by his 
brother-in-law, Edmund Lushington, insuring in 1844 
Dr. Allen's life for a portion of the debt due to the 
poet. The physician on his part atoned, so far as lay 
in his power, for the misfortune he had caused, by 
obligingly dying in January, 1845. 

Consequently, while the literary prospects of Tenny- 
son were brightening, his pecuniary prospects, never 
up to this time brilliant, were perceptibly darkened. 
Still less than ever was he in a position of independ- 
ence. To a man who desired to devote himself to the 
pursuit of literature pure and simple, the outlook for 
the future could hardly have failed to seem peculiarly 
disheartening. His feelings during this period are 
portrayed in a letter to a friend written after the 
receipt of his pension in October, 1845. ''I have 
gone," he said, 'Hhro' a vast deal of suffering (as to 
money difficulties in my family etc.) since I saw you 
last, and would not live it over again for quadruple 
the pension Peel has given me."^ Personal troubles 
were added to pecuniary. The correspondence with 
her who was subsequently to become his wife had 

1 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 226, 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 503 

been for years forbidden. The prospect of marriage 
had been poor enough before. Still less was there 
now anything to justify the belief that he would be 
in a position to support a family. Troubles afflicting 
either the heart or the pocket-book are never conducive 
to vigor. Coming together, they affected Tennyson's 
physical condition so seriously that we are told that 
his friends despaired of the continuance of his life.^ 
Hypochondria had set in with all its morbid anxieties 
about health and its utter depression of spirits. 
Reports about him and his condition are conflicting 
in the correspondence of the period. At one time 
they are favorable, at another time they are unfavor- 
able. We know that in 1844 he resorted for a while 
to a hydropathic establishment at Cheltenham. This 
same method of re-establishing his health he tried 
years later. 

The mention by Tennyson of his pension brings to 
the front the question of the agency by which it was 
secured. While the tributes that were increasingly 
paid to his eminence were unquestionably agreeable, 
they were not of a nature to contribute to his support, 
save indirectly. As the earnest desire existed among 
his friends, who were also friends to literature, that 
he should have the means to give himself up to his 
life-work, undisturbed by pecuniary anxieties, they 
conceived the idea of securing him a pension from the 
Literary Fund at the disposal of the government. 
In this they were eventually successful. One story 
of the way in which it was secured — the one commonly 

1 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 221. 



504 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

accepted — was told by Wemyss Reid in his life of 
Lord Houghton. As given there, it has been adopted, 
too, in what may be called the official biography of the 
poet by his son, who himself heard more than once 
the details recited in the presence of his father. 
Accordingly, it may seem to have received the sanction 
of the latter ; that he accepted as true all that is implied 
by it. At any rate, the account deserves not merely 
relation but precedence. 

Among the friends of the poet who were most 
earnest in the movement for securing the pension 
was Carlyle. He found in Tennyson, as he wrote to 
Emerson, one of the few figures ''who are and remain 
beautiful to me." ''I do not," he said further in the 
same letter, ''meet in these late decades such company 
over a pipe." As early as October, 1844, he had 
written to FitzGerald that "it has struck me as a 
distinctly necessary Act of Legislation that Alfred 
should have a Pension of £150 a year."^ FitzGerald 
undoubtedly sympathized with this view ; but he could 
not furnish any help. Naturally Carlyle turned to 
quarters more likely to be of influence in securing the 
result. He it was who one day in his home at Cheyne 
Row addressed one of Tennyson's friends, who was 
a member of Parliament, and was supposed to have 
some influence with the prime minister. 

"Milnes," said he, as he took his pipe out of his 
mouth, "when are you going to get that pension for 
Alfred .Tennyson?" 

1 * New Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ' edited by Alexander Carlyle, 
Vol. I, p. 322. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 505 

**My dear Carlyle," answered Milnes, ''the thing 
is not so easy as you seem to suppose. What will my 
constituents say if I do get the pension for Tennyson? 
They know nothing about him or his poetry, and they 
will probably think he is some poor relation of my own, 
and that the whole affair is a job." 

''Richard Milnes," replied Carlyle solemnly, "on 
the Day of Judgment when the Lord asks you why 
you didn't get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it 
will not do to lay the blame on your constituents; it 
is you that will be damned. ' ' 

Milnes according to this account had not needed any 
entreaties to spur him to the effort. A pension of 
£200 was available. Application had already been 
made to Sir Robert Peel to bestow it upon two different 
persons. One was Tennyson, the other the veteran 
dramatist, James Sheridan Knowles. The latter was 
now over sixty years of age, and though his plays had 
in general been successful, he was far from being in 
affluent circumstances. Peel applied to Milnes for 
advice, accompanying his request with the remark that 
he knew absolutely nothing about either man. 

"What," said Milnes, "have you never seen the 
name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill?" 

"No," was Peel's answer. 

"And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's?'* 
Again the answer was "No." At Peel's request that 
he should enable him to see something which Tennyson 
had written, Milnes sent him 'Locksley Hall' and 
'Ulysses.' How he managed to do it without sending 
him the volume containing the rest of the poems we 



506 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

are not told. With these pieces went a letter in which 
Milnes said that if the pension was granted as an act 
of charity, it should go to Knowles, who was infirm 
as well as advanced in years; if, on the contrary, in 
the interests of English literature and the English 
nation, it should be given to Tennyson. 

That Peel should never have read at that time a 
poem of Tennyson's, however much it may have 
surprised Milnes, would have been in itself far from 
surprising. Very few men of his years, occupied as 
he constantly was with the consideration of great 
political questions, have the leisure, even if they have 
the desire, to keep up with the literature which has 
sprung up during their absorption in affairs of state. 
If they maintain their acquaintance with any literature 
at all, it is fairly certain to be that with which they 
have become familiar in earlier years. Occasional 
exceptions may be found. Of Peel himself it is 
reported that he made it a point of learning a verse 
every night before he went to bed, to take away, he 
said, the taste of the House of Commons.^ If so, he 
had never lost his appreciation of poetry as poetry. 
Furthermore, we learn from his correspondence that 
he was well acquainted Avith the writings of contem- 
porary English authors, of whom it would be natural 
to suppose he knew little or nothing. In November, 
1844, in placing a sum of the public money at the 
disposal of the dying Hood, he assured that author 
that ''There can be little which you have written that 
I have not read." 

1 'Notes from a Diary, 1892-1895,' by Sir Mountstuart E. Grant DuflP, 
1904, Vol. II, p. 8. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 507 

Still it would be in no wise surprising that a man 
like him, constantly engaged in political strife, should 
never have read any of Tennyson's productions. Well 
known as the poet's name had become to the men of 
the younger generation, it was positively unknown 
to many of the older. Of the insensibility of the men 
of this older generation to what was going on before 
their eyes, of their ignorance of it, there are plenty 
of illustrations. In Macaulay's diary for March 9, 
1850, occurs, for instance, this extraordinary prophecy, 
* ' It is odd, ' ' he wrote, ' ' that the last twenty-five years, 
which have witnessed the greatest progress ever 
made in physical science — the greatest victories ever 
achieved by man over matter — should have produced 
hardly a volume that will be remembered in 1900." 
A little later in the same year we find him writing to 
Henry Taylor in acknowledgment of the reception of 
that dramatist's play of 'The Virgin Widow.' He 
spoke of it as being what its author had meant it to 
be — cheerful, graceful, and gentle. ** Nevertheless," 
he continued, ^' 'Philip Van Artevelde' is still, in my 
opinion, the best poem that the last thirty years have 
produced; and I wish that you would deprive it of 
that pre-eminence, a feat which nobody but yourself 
seems likely to accomplish. ' '^ Could a more suggestive 
illustration be furnished of the worthlessness of con- 
temporary criticism of the productions of the imagi- 
nation? The quarter of the century, whose intellectual 
poverty was so strongly pointed out by Macaulay, 

1 Letter dated from the Albany, June 6, 1850, ' Correspondence of 
Sir Henry Taylor,' p. 188. 



508 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

had witnessed the production of much of the best 
work of both Tennyson and Browning in poetry; of 
Dickens and Thackeray and Carlyle in prose; not to 
speak of no small number of writers like Bulwer, 
Disraeli, Kingsley, and others who still continue to 
be remembered and read. 

Accordingly, if a man like Macaulay, whose interests 
lay primarily in literature, was utterly unfamiliar 
with Tennyson's poetry in 1850, Peel can hardly be 
blamed if several years earlier he had never even 
heard of his existence. Yet there is evidence that a 
long while before the pension was conferred upon the 
poet, the statesman was acquainted with his name, if 
not with his writings. On the death of Southey in 
1843, Fanny Kemble, at the instigation of Bryan 
Waller Procter, had written to Lord Francis Egerton, 
later Earl of EUesmere, to engage his interest in 
securing for Tennyson the post of poet laureate. The 
reason she gave for her application was the somewhat 
distressful circumstances in which the poet had been 
left by the failure of Dr. Allen's scheme for wood- 
carving. Procter indeed had told her that Tennyson 
had been ''utterly ruined" by it. The nobleman to 
whom she applied, informed her that he had discovered 
that Wordsworth had already been selected for the 
position. On March 31, he added, however, ''a 
suggestion of Sir Eobert Peel's, involving a palliation 
of Mr. T.'s complaint."^ What the "palliation" was 
is not specified, but it was probably the same which, 
as we shall see, was later offered through Hallam and 

1 ' Memories of the Tennysons, ' by H. D. Eawnsley, p. 89. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 509 

not accepted. It is a reasonable inference from this 
communication that Peel had even then some knowl- 
edge of the poet and his writings. At all events, his 
correspondence, as published, renders it necessary to 
receive Milnes's statements about the prime minister's 
ignorance with certain grains of allowance, if not to 
revise them altogether. Other friends besides him 
were certainly active, other agencies were at work 
besides his towards securing the pension. It ought to 
be added that it was secured without Tennyson's 
privity or co-operation, as had been the previous 
application of Fanny Kemble. ^'Something in that 
word 'pension' sticks in my gizzard," he wrote not 
long after its reception; ''it is only the name, and 
perhaps would 'smell sweeter' by some other." But 
he had the consolation of feeling that it had been 
secured for him by others, and not by any efforts 
of his own. "I have done nothing slavish to get it," 
he wrote to one of his friends ; " I never even solicited 
for it either by myself or thro' others."^ Further- 
more, he had been assured by the prime minister in 
offering it that he need not be hindered by it in the 
public expression of any opinion he chose to adopt. 

So far as can be gathered from Peel's correspond- 
ence, it was not Milnes, but Henry Hallam who first 
called his attention to both the merits and the needs 
of the poet.^ On the eleventh of February, 1845, the 
historian wrote a letter to the prime minister on the 
subject of securing a pension for Tennyson, "whose 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 227. 

2 Sir Eobert Peel, from his Private Papers, London, 1899, Vol. HI, 
pp. 439-442. 



510 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

name," he added, '^must be familiar to you, even if 
you have never looked at his writings. Perhaps I do 
not overstate the fact when I say that he is considered 
by many as the very first among the younger class of 
living poets. He is at least a man of a fertile and 
thoughtful mind, and few would hesitate to ascribe 
to him the high praise of genius. ' ' Hallam then went 
on to refer Peel to Eogers and to Henry Taylor for 
their estimate of the man in whose behalf he was 
writing. He could easily mention others, he said, 
''Mr. Milnes, for example, whose judgment in poetry 
deserves considerable regard." He concluded his 
letter with observing that Tennyson was by no means 
prosperous in worldly circumstances, but much the 
reverse. 

Four days later Peel replied to this application. It 
is evident from his words that he was favorably 
disposed towards the request but lacked the means 
to comply with it. Furthermore, we have his own 
assurance that Tennyson's poetry was not at that 
time wholly unfamiliar to him, though there is nothing 
to show when or how he first became acquainted with 
it. "I have read, ' ' he wrote, * ' some of Mr. Tennyson 's 
works and have formed a very high estimate of his 
powers." The words italicized were italicized by the 
prime minister himself. He added, however, that he 
had no means for making any permanent provision 
for the poet. Every shilling, he said, of the miserable 
pittance granted by the Crown for Civil List pensions 
had been appropriated. He could, however, relieve 
any temporary embarrassment from a very limited 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 511 

public fund occasionally used for the relief of men 
of letters. Out of this he could grant Tennyson £200, 
and would do so if acceptable to his feelings. Mani- 
festly it was not acceptable to his feelings, or to the 
feelings of Hallam. Such a gift would imply a 
necessity which did not exist. So the matter slumbered 
for seven months. 

But Peel neither lost sight of the poet nor forgot 
Hallam 's application in the poet's behalf. On the 
twenty-first of September, he wrote to the historian 
that he now had at his disposal £400 for pensions. 
Two hundred of this he was purposing to grant to 
Professor James David Forbes, of the University of 
Edinburgh, for the services he had rendered to science. 
Then he went on to speak of Tennyson. ' * The impres- 
sions left on my mind by the poems," he wrote, 
''confirmed as they are by the highest testimonies I 
could receive in his favour — your own and that of 
Mr. Rogers — will induce me, should it be agreeable 
to Mr. Tennyson, to submit his name to the Queen, 
with my humble recommendation to her Majesty that 
a pension of 2001. per annum should be granted to 
him for his life." Hallam replied the following day, 
thanking Peel warmly. In it he spoke of Tennyson 
as ''a man of great poetical genius, and one, as I can 
add, of almost chivalrous honour and purity of 
character; and that you will have the response of 
applause from the lovers of poetry, especially the 
younger of both sexes, who regard Tennyson as the 
first name among the later cultivators of that sacred 
field." Hallam at once communicated the information 



512 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to the poet; and Tennyson wrote to the minister from 
Cheltenham on the twenty-ninth of this same month 
gratefully accepting the offer. On the first of October, 
Peel informed him of his intention to advise the Crown 
to confer this mark of royal favor ''on one who has 
devoted to worthy purposes great intellectual powers." 
On the fifteenth of this same month the pension was 
granted. 

From the account which has just been given, two 
facts become evident. One is that Milnes's could not 
have been the only agency, hardly even the principal 
agency, in securing the pension for the poet. He may 
indeed have been the first to call the attention of the 
prime minister to the matter, possibly in conversation ; 
for no contemporary record of his efforts has so far 
appeared in print. In this way the account of his 
action given in his biography may be harmonized with 
the facts as they appear in Peel's correspondence. 
Still, it is manifest that the statesman made up his 
mind independently — a circumstance all the more 
complimentary to the poet. It is Hallam who refers 
to Milnes; it is not Peel. It is a natural inference 
indeed that the latter relied little upon the judgment 
of his colleague as compared with that of the historian 
and of Rogers. The second fact which is brought out 
distinctly is the general acknowledgment which had 
then come to prevail of the superiority of Tennyson 
to all the poets of his generation. This was especially 
true of the view taken by the younger men ; and their 
opinion would necessarily become in a few years that 
of the whole nation. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 513 

There was unquestionably some doubt entertained, 
and even occasionally expressed, as to the policy of 
conferring a pension upon a man of letters who was 
then in the prime of life. Still the same objection 
would have applied to a man of science like Professor 
Forbes who was born in the same year as the poet. 
Nevertheless, a feeling of this sort prevailed even in 
friendly official quarters. Gladstone, whom Peel con- 
sulted, observed that Tennyson was but a young man 
for a pension. ''As to his genius," he remarked, '*I 
will not trouble you with any eulogy of mine, but will 
observe that Mr. Rogers told me he considered him 
by much the first among all the younger poets of this 
generation." Then followed an expression of personal 
opinion which reveals the general sentiment existing 
at that time that little pecuniary return could be hoped 
for or expected by him who gave up his life to the 
cultivation of literature pure and simple. The fore- 
boding entertained, contrasted with the subsequent 
fortunes of the man who was made its subject, reads 
somewhat strangely now. "Still it appears estab- 
lished, ' ' concluded Gladstone, ' * that though a true and 
even a great poet, he can hardly become a popular, 
and is much more likely to be a starving one. ' ' 

There was, however, nothing peculiar in the belief 
just recorded. Much the same feeling about the poet's 
worldly success in the calling to which he had devoted 
himself is indicated rather than expressed in an 
unpublished letter of Rogers. From this an extract 
has been taken by one of Tennyson's biographers. 
It is dated October 20 of this same year, thus following 



514 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

close upon the gift of the pension. It is peculiarly- 
characteristic of the writer, who was wont to couple 
the doing of generous things with the saying of ones 
frequently far from being entitled to that epithet. 
' ' Tennyson, ' ' wrote Rogers, ' 4s by many thought unfit 
for a pension; but he has many infirmities, such as 
to you I hope will be ever unknown, and such as make 
him utterly incapable of supporting himself. Of his 
genius I need say nothing, and have only to wish that 
I could always understand him. "^ The praise given 
in this extract can hardly be called unduly enthu- 
siastic ; but it distinctly surpassed the gift of prophecy 
which he took occasion to utter. Rogers lived long 
enough to recognize the folly of his prediction of 
Tennyson's incapacity to support himself. It is one 
of the misfortunes of old age that it is constantly 
compelled to witness the failure of most of its 
prophetic utterances, in particular of those about 
contemporaries. 

However satisfactory the gift of the pension was 
to the admirers of the poet, it was unquestionably a 
subject of vexation to his detractors. Especially was 
this the case with those of them who were still affected 
by the traditions of the eighteenth century. Such 
persons too were much more numerous than might 
have been supposed. We have seen that the praise 
given by the leading periodicals had never gone beyond 
the limits of proper critical decorum. We cannot tell 
in any given case, to be sure, how much the enthusiasm 

1 * Lord Tennyson, a Biographical Sketch, ' by Henry J. Jennings, 
1892, p. 106. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 515 

of the writer may have been tempered by the judicial 
discretion of the editor; for those were the days in 
which the conductors of periodicals assumed the right 
to tamper not only with the language but with the 
opinions of the contributors, even those most noted, 
to an extent which, if exercised now, would tend to 
sever all relations between the two parties. In the 
review, for instance, which Leigh Hunt wrote of the 
'Poems' of 1842, a paragraph containing gross per- 
sonal abuse of John Mitchell Kemble was inserted by 
the editor without the writer's knowledge or consent. 
Even the mild praise given in the 'Quarterly' to 
Tennyson's work excited the indignation of some of 
its old supporters. It was hard enough for Lockhart 
to be compelled to eat his o^vn words by admitting 
to the periodical he edited an article which contradicted 
in numerous ways his previous utterances on the same 
poet and the same poems. Yet he had to undergo the 
further discomfort of being censured for allowing so 
much praise to be given at all. ' ' I may permit myself 
to mention," he wrote, ''that Mr. Croker was gravely 
offended by the second review favourable to Tennyson, 
when that poet came forth and broke silence in 1842. ' '^ 
The old critical guard died discredited and dis- 
regarded, it is true; but it never surrendered. It 
never pandered to the depraved taste which had 
turned aside from the old gods to burn incense at the 
shrines which had been set up by the worshippers of 
the new. As Croker lived until 1857, he had ample 
time and constant opportunity to grieve over the 

lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol. II, p. 287. 



516 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

degenerate taste which had come to reckon Tennyson 
the greatest of contemporary poets. 

The conferring of the pension led, however, to one 
memorable attack which came near furnishing a 
prominent chapter in the quarrels of authors. Such 
certainly would have been the case if Tennyson's 
sensitiveness to criticism, excessive as it was, had not 
been surpassed by his self-restraint. The one respon- 
sible for the attack was Bulwer, who on his mother's 
death in 1843 had assumed the surname of Lytton. 
Up to a certain date the fortunes of the two men had 
not been dissimilar ; in truth, they may be said to have 
borne at the beginning a somewhat singular resem- 
blance. Like Tennyson, Bulwer had begun his career 
as a poet. Like him he had published a volume when 
he was only seventeen years old. It bore on the title- 
page that it was written between the ages of thirteen 
and fifteen. Like him, too, he had gained the Chan- 
cellor's medal at Cambridge for a prize poem. Here, 
however, the comparison practically ends. Before he 
had taken his degree in 1826, Bulwer had published 
three volumes of verse. But from none of them did 
he gain any real literary repute. That came to him 
with his second novel, 'Pelham,' which appeared in 
1828, and which made dandyism for a while fashion- 
able. It is also said, whether truly or untruly, to have 
introduced the fashion of wearing black coats for 
evening dress. 

It was upon his novels mainly, but partly upon his 
parliamentary labors and partly upon his plays, that 
Bulwer built up his reputation. During his whole 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 517 

career, however, lie had occasional lapses into verse. 
One of these he had distinct reason to regret. It was 
a work which came out in piecemeal. Towards the 
end of December, 1845, appeared the first part of a 
poem entitled 'The New Timon.' It was followed 
on January 12, 1846, by Part II, and on February 4 
by Part III. A little later appeared Part IV, which 
completed the work. Though the volume in a few 
years passed out of notice and has now largely gone 
out of remembrance, it achieved at the time a tem- 
porary popularity or at least notoriety, both in 
England and America. Several editions of it were 
called for in the course of the year. Attention had 
been at once attracted to its first part by certain 
spirited characterizations it contained of men promi- 
nent in public life. These were the Duke of Wellington, 
Sir Eobert Peel, O'Connell, and Lord Stanley, the 
future Earl of Derby. To this last-named a phrase 
had been applied by Disraeli in a speech delivered in 
the House of Commons in April, 1844. He had there 
styled him ' ' the Rupert of debate. ' ' This description 
Bulwer seized upon and may be said to have popular- 
ized. It has perhaps done more to keep alive the 
memory of the poem than all the incidents it contained, 
or the scenes it depicted. 

'The New Timon' was anonymous. It professed 
indeed to be written by an Anglo-Indian. In a note 
explaining a phrase found in the text its author spoke 
of it as "familiar to those who, like the writer, have 
resided in the vast Empire we govern and forget." 
Indeed great care seems to have been taken at the 



518 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

outset to guard the secret of the authorship, though 
attention had been sedulously called to the work long 
before it was published, by copies of this first part 
having been sent to persons prominent in social and 
political life. Bulwer himself insisted for a time that 
he had nothing whatever to do with its composition. 
Even to his intimate friends he disclaimed having 
written it. But it speedily came to pass that hardly 
any one, whether friendly or hostile, went to the 
trouble of making even the pretence of believing his 
denial. Those connected with the periodical press 
who affected to do so, did it for the sake of making 
more bitter their personal attack upon the assumed 
unknown author. One favorite method to which they 
resorted was to point out the resemblances between 
the scenes and incidents in 'The New Timon' and 
similar scenes and incidents in Bulwer 's novels. This 
furnished a pretext for denouncing the plagiarisms 
of the anonymous poet from the works of the prose 
writer of fiction. There was indeed no use in Bulwer 's 
denying the authorship. The work was throughout 
in his manner. It had his tricks of expression, even 
his phrases, and followed the lines of development 
which had characterized some of his novels. But even 
with the poorest of these it could not compare. As a 
poem it was a very ordinary performance. When 
stripped of the adventitious aid of its personal refer- 
ences, it soon sank into forgetfulness. Bulwer in a 
short time came to recognize the uselessness as well 
as the folly of not acknowledging his responsibility 
for it. His poem of 'King Arthur,' published three 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 519 

years later, not only bore his name on the title-page, 
but also described him as the author of 'The New 
Timon. ' 

It was in the second part which came out early in 
1846 that the attack on Tennyson appeared. Without 
warning and without conceivable pretext the flow of 
the narrative was suddenly interrupted by the intro- 
duction of a paragraph in which the anonymous author, 
while celebrating his own Spartan severity of taste, 
expressed his lofty disdain of the meretricious charms 
with which his contemporary had sought to bedizen 
his muse. The passage began, too, with the same old 
reference to that mysterious love episode of his early 
life which Bulwer repeated so often that he seems to 
have finally come to believe it himself. It is in 
the following lines that the attack on Tennyson is 
contained : 

Me Life had skill 'd ! — to me, from woe and wrong, 

By Passion's tomb leapt forth the source of Song. 

The ''Quicquid agunt Homines/^ — whate'er 

Our actions teach us, and our natures share, 

Life and the "World, our City and our Age, 

Have tried my spirit to inform my page ; 

I seek no purfled prettiness of phrase, — 

A soul in earnest scorns the tricks for praise. 

If to my verse denied the Poet's fame, 

This merit, rare to verse that wins, I claim ; 

No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen ! 

E V 'n in a love-song, man should write for men ! 

Not mine, not mine, ( Muse forbid ! ) the boon 

Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune, 

The jingling medley of purloin 'd conceits, 

Outbabying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keates, 



520 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime 

To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme ! 

Am I enthrall 'd but by the sterile rule, 

The formal pupil of a frigid school, 

If to old laws my Spartan tastes adhere. 

If the old vigorous music charms my ear. 

Where sense with sound, and ease with weight combine, 

In the pure silver of Pope 's ringing line ; 

Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong 

In the frank flow of Dry den's lusty song? 

Let School-Miss Alfred vent her chaste delight 

On ''darling little rooms so warm and bright!" 

Chaunt "I'm aweary," in infectious strain. 

And catch her "blue fly singing i' the pane." 

Tho' praised by Critics, tho' adored by Blues, 

Tho' Peel with pudding plump the puling Muse, 

Tho ' Theban taste the Saxon 's purse controuls. 

And pensions Tennyson, while starves a Knowles, 

Rather, be thou, my poor Pierian Maid, 

Decent at least, in Hayley 's weeds array 'd. 

Than patch with frippery every tinsel line. 

And flaunt, admired, the Rag Fair of the Nine ! 

As if the attack in the lines were not enough, further 
comment full as offensive was made in the notes. In 
them Bulwer reprinted a part of the '0 Darling Eoom' 
of the volume of 1832, which Tennyson had silently 
dropped from his new edition. "The whole of this 
Poem (!!!)," he remarked, *'is worth reading, in order 
to see to what depth of silliness the human intellect 
can descend." The other quotations given in the 
attack are from 'Mariana.' But it was the pension 
granted to Tennyson that stirred most Bulwer 's bile. 
He expressed indignation at the failure of James 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 521 

Sheridan Knowles to receive one and the preference 
that had been given to Tennyson. Of the poet himself 
and his work, Bulwer expressed no uncertain opinion. 
''The most that can be said of Mr. Tennyson," he 
wrote, ''is, that he is the favourite of a small circle; 
to the mass of the Public little more than his name 
is known — he has moved no thousands — he has created 
no world of characters — he has laboured out no death- 
less truths, nor enlarged our knowledge of the human 
heart by the delineation of various and elevating 
passions — he has lent a stout shoulder to no sinking 
but manly cause, dear to the Nation and to Art; yet, 
if the uncontradicted statement in the journals be 
true, this Gentleman has been quartered on the public 
purse ; he is in the prime of life, belonging to a wealthy 
family, without, I believe, wife or children; at the 
very time that Mr. Knowles was lecturing for bread 
in foreign lands, verging towards old age, unfriended 
even by the public he has charmed! — such is the 
justice of our Ministers, such the national gratitude 
to those whom we thank and — starve." 

The accuracy of the information contained in this 
note as to Tennyson's pecuniary circumstances was 
on a level with the value of the criticism of his verse. 
Bulwer was a man of distinct and varied talents; but 
there was something preposterous in an author of his 
grade of poetical achievement venturing to assume a 
superior critical attitude towards Wordsworth and 
Keats, to say nothing of the unprovoked attack upon 
Tennyson. He was speedily to learn that he had 



522 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

utterly mistaken the temper of the times. The attitude 
of the public towards Tennyson since the day that 
Lockhart could safely venture to publish his insolent 
review of 1833 had undergone not merely alteration, 
but a complete revolution. This every one saw and 
felt save the occasional survivors of outworn poetical 
creeds. Bulwer's verses were unquestionably relished 
by some of these even though they may have had 
no special admiration for the poem in which they 
appeared. Hostile criticism of Tennyson had come 
more and more to be kept in restraint with the progress 
of time ; but the disposition to depreciate still survived 
and rejoiced in an attack it did not itself venture to 
make. Both the paragraph in the poem and the note 
accompanying it were copied with hardly disguised 
glee in ' The Literary Gazette ' in its review of Part II 
of 'The New Timon.' There was at least one exhibi- 
tion of the same state of mind in America. Here 
Bulwer 's work was republished from the third edition. 
It was highly praised in an article written by Bartol, 
then a prominent Unitarian clergyman of Boston. 
This is worth noticing, not for its critical acumen which 
was less than nothing, but for the sympathy manifested 
with the attack made upon the poet. It occurs in a 
review of several volumes of verse, in which 'The 
New Timon' was singled out from the rest for especial 
laudation. It was characterized as ''the most fresh 
and striking work of late English publication ; and its 
strong style is a wholesome protest against the feeble 
sentimentality and slender ornaments of the whole 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 523 

Tennyson school.'" The poem received also high and 
really undeserved praise in a review of it by Lowell, 
though he censured the attack made in it on Words- 
worth and Keats and Tennyson.^ 

But criticisms of this nature were far from repre- 
senting the general attitude. Bulwer had unwittingly 
stirred up a hornet's nest. He speedily discovered 
that the circle of which Tennyson was a favorite was 
far from being the small one he had supposed. It 
must indeed have given him something of a shock to 
discover that the opinion expressed in his verses was 
so far from finding sympathizers that, outside of a 
very limited circle, it could hardly muster even apolo- 
gists. A host of partisans at once rushed forward 
not merely to defend the assailed but to attack the 
assailant. The contemptuous tone often taken in the 
periodicals which reviewed ^The New Timon' on its 
completion was largely intensified by the resentment 
felt for his sneers at Tennyson and the futile efforts 
of the writer to escape responsibility for the author- 
ship of the poem in which they were contained. In 
truth, the storm eventually became too violent to be 
endured. The scornful attitude which Bulwer had 
assumed towards the poet had been returned upon 
him with unexpected intensity. The second edition 
of the complete work appeared about the middle of 
March. Shortly after came out the third edition. 
Later in the year appeared a fourth edition. From 

1 Article on ' Poetry and Imagination, ' by the Eev. Cyrus Augustus 
Bartol in 'The Christian Examiner,' Vol. VII, 4th series, p. 263. 

2 ' North American Eeview, ' Vol. LXIV, p. 467, 



524 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

that the offensive paragraph in the poem and its 
accompanying notes were silently withdrawn and have 
never since been reprinted. 

The incident itself brought to the attention of all 
at the time as well as to Bulwer himself the change 
which had come over the minds of men since Lockhart 
had published his review of 1833. Not unfrequent 
comment was made upon the fact. ' * Of the hold which 
his poetry has already taken on the public heart," 
wrote William Howitt, for example, in 1846, "a strik- 
ing instance was lately given. The anonymous author 
of The New Timon stepped out of his way and his 
subject to represent Tennyson's muse as a puling 
school-miss. The universal outburst of indignation 
from the press scared the opprobrious lines speedily 
out of the snarler's pages. A new edition was quickly 
announced, from which they had wisely vanished." 
With the eventual disappearance of all interest in the 
work itself both these lines in it and the notes accom- 
panying them were soon forgotten. In process of 
time, too, Tennyson came to have amicable relations 
with his assailant, at least outwardly amicable ones; 
for it is hard to believe that there could have been 
any genuine sympathy of feeling between two men 
so utterly dissimilar in character and motive. Still 
he prefixed to his drama of ' Harold, ' published in 1876, 
a dedication to the second Lord Lytton. In the course 
of it he observed that the historical romance of the 
first lord had been one of his main helps in writing 
his own work. "Your father," he concluded, ''dedi- 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 525 

cated his 'Harold' to my father's brother; allow me 
to dedicate my Harold to yourself." 

In the temporary tempest which arose, the sym- 
pathies of the men of the younger generation in 
particular, were, as might be supposed, almost entirely 
on the side of Tennyson. Among these were the 
writers concerned in the publication of 'Punch,' which 
had begun its existence five years before. The 
periodical came in consequence to take a somewhat 
memorable part in the controversy which sprang up. 
In the number for February 7, 1846, appeared the 
following little squib entitled ' ''The New Timon" and 
Alfred Tennyson's Pension': 

You've seen a lordly mastiff's port, 
Bearing in calm contemptuous sort 
The snarls of some o'erpetted pup, 
"Who grudges him his ' ' bit and sup ' ' : 
So stands the bard of Locksley Hall 
While puny darts around him fall, 
Tipp'd with what Timon takes for venom; 
He is the mastiff, Tim the Blenheim. 

The satire of these lines was poorer than anything to 
be found in Bulwer's poem. It indicated the resent- 
ment that prevailed, but was far from giving it 
adequate expression. But its feebleness was more 
than made up by Tennyson himself in a poem which 
appeared in the number for February 28 of this same 
periodical. It bore the title of 'The New Timon, and 
the Poets,' and had appended to it the signature of 
Alcibiades. Though the authorship of the poem was 
veiled, no one who had become familiar with Tenny- 



526 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

son's style could fail to detect the writer who was 
responsible for the following lines: 

We knew him, out of Shakespeare 's art, 
And those fine curses which he spoke ; 

The old Timon, with his noble heart. 

That, strongly loathing, greatly broke. 

So died the Old : here comes the New, 

Regard him : a familiar face : 
I thought we knew him : What, it 's you, 

The padded man — that wears the stays — 

Who kill'd the girls and thrill'd the boys, 
With dandy pathos when you wrote, 

A Lion, you, that made a noise. 

And shook a mane en papillotes. 

And once you tried the Muses too ; 

You fail 'd, Sir : therefore now you turn, 
To fall on those who are to you. 

As Captain is to Subaltern. 

But men of long-enduring hopes, 

And careless what this hour may bring, 

Can pardon little would-be Popes 

And Brummels, when they try to sting. 

An artist. Sir, should rest in Art, 

And waive a little of his claim ; 
To have the deep Poetic heart 

Is more than all poetic fame. 

But you. Sir, you are hard to please; 

You never look but half content : 
Nor like a gentleman at ease, 

With moral breadth of temperament. 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 527 

And what with spites and what with fears, 

You cannot let a body be : 
It's always ringing in your ears, 

' ' They call this man as good as me. ' ' 

"What profits now to understand 

The merits of a spotless shirt — 
A dapper boot — a little hand — 

If half the little soul is dirt? 

You talk of tinsel ! why, we see 

The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks. 

You prate of Nature ! you are he 

That spilt his life about the cliques. 

A Timon you ! Nay, nay, for shame : 

It looks too arrogant a jest — 
The fierce old man — to take his name, 

You bandbox. Off, and let him rest. 

The full force of Tennyson *s satire will never be 
appreciated save by the few; for it is the few only 
who will have either the leisure or the courage to wade 
through the work which suggested it. The poet him- 
self never republished the piece. It is not to be found 
in any authorized edition of his writings ; which is one 
main reason for reprinting it here. He further dis- 
claimed all responsibility for its publication at the 
time. *'I never sent my lines to Punch/' he wrote. 
''John Forster did. They were too bitter. I do not 
think that I should ever have published them. ' ' How- 
ever they got there, it is manifest that Tennyson 
speedily regretted the printing of them, perhaps the 
writing of them. In the next number of 'Punch' 



528 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

indeed appeared a short piece of Ms which expressed 
his real sentiments after he had recovered from his 
temporary indignation. It bore the same signature 
of Alcibiades and was entitled 'Afterthoughts.' In 
modern editions of the poet it is found under the 
heading of 'Literary Squabbles.' In this he appeared 
to express a sense of shame for having been betrayed 
into taking notice of the unprovoked attack to which 
he had been subjected. Such undoubtedly were the 
feelings he had himself soon come to entertain; but 
to the reader he will seem to have followed the wisest 
and properest course to vindicate his own reputation 
and to protect himself from future assaults of a similar 
character. The trenchant lines he then wrote were 
unquestionably a main if not the main agency in 
causing the suppression of the offensive passages 
about himself ; and it announced in unmistakable terms 
to the whole tribe of depredators that it would not 
be satisfactory to their present peace of mind or to 
their future reputation to presume too far upon the 
patience of School-miss Alfred. To be safe from 
contempt, they must either be careful to hide their 
names or wait till the object of their attack was dead. 
Whatever may have been the nature of the recon- 
ciliation between the two men, it is plain that Bulwer 's 
real feelings at this particular period of his life were 
revealed in the lines he was forced to discard. In a 
later novel he put the views he still cherished in the 
mouth of one of his favorite characters. In it Colonel 
Morley is represented as cursing the critics for having 
praised the verses of a certain imaginary poet who 



TENNYSON'S PENSION 529 

was dead. His words really express Bulwer's poetic 
creed, and the faith he accepted did not include Tenny- 
son. The work of this assumed dead author, Colonel 
Morley declared he had failed to read, not because it 
was below contempt, but because it was above compre- 
hension. ''All poetry," says he, ''praised by critics 
nowadays is as hard to understand as a hieroglyphic. 
I own a weakness for Pope and common sense. I 
could keep up with our age as far as Byron ; but after 
him I was thrown out. However, Arthur was declared 
by the critics to be a great improvement on Byron ! — 
more 'poetical in form' — more 'aesthetically artistic' — 
more 'objective' or 'subjective' (I am sure I forget 
which, but it was one or the other, nonsensical, and 
not English) in his views of man and nature. Very 
possibly. All I know is — I bought the poems, but could 
not read them ; the critics read them, but did not buy. ' '^ 
This was far from an exact representation of the sale 
of Tennyson's writings, but it was of Bulwer's feel- 
ings at the time about his great contemporary. This 
attitude he continued to hold long after and perhaps 
never abandoned. To a visitor at Knebsworth in 1861, 
he said that he could not read Tennyson. 

1 'What Will He Do with It,' 1859, Vol. Ill, p. 133. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE PRINCESS 

On the seventeenth of December, 1847, London daily- 
papers announced in their advertising columns the 
appearance ' 4n a few days " of a new poem by Tenny- 
son entitled ' The Princess. ' On Saturday, the twenty- 
fifth of the same month, came the further announce- 
ment that it was that day published. The work had 
been for some time in preparation. In May, 1845, 
FitzGerald had met Tennyson in London. ''He was 
looking well and in good spirits, ' ' he wrote to Frederick 
Tennyson, "and had got two hundred lines of a new 
poem in a butcher 's book. ' " This is one of the earlier 
notices of the poet's being actually engaged on the 
work he was contemplating. 

The estimate which had now come to be taken of 
Tennyson by the educated class, and the interest with 
which anything from his pen was looked for, are 
evinced by the fact that talk about the expected poem 
began in literary circles almost as soon as it was known 
to be in course of preparation. The reports which 
sprang up in regard to it and continued even to the 
date of its publication bore generally only a remote 
resemblance to the truth. A peculiarly fantastic one, 

1 Letter of June 12, 1845, in FitzGerald 's 'Letters and Literary 
Remains,' Vol. I, p. 154. 



THE PRINCESS 531 

learned from her brother, was communicated to her 
future husband by Miss Barrett nearly two years 
before the work appeared. At the very end of 
January, 1846, she wrote to Browning that Tennyson 
was seriously ill with an internal complaint and con- 
fined to his bed, as George hears from a common 
friend. '* Which," she added, ''does not prevent his 
writing a new poem — he has finished the second book 
of it — and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and is 
called the 'University,' the university-members being 
all females." Miss Barrett was as much puzzled by 
the character of this news as Tennyson would have 
been himself. "I don't know what to think — ," she 
added; "it makes me open my eyes." 

Rumors, indeed, many fanciful and some almost 
grotesque, about the nature of the work and the senti- 
ments expressed in it were prevalent during the years 
immediately preceding its appearance. Taking into 
consideration its actual character, perhaps the most 
extraordinary was that it was marked by peculiar 
hostility to the female sex. Mary Russell Mitford 
more than once in her correspondence bears witness 
to the existence of this impression. In September of 
1847, she wrote that she had heard of its being very 
beautiful, but that it gave a low idea of women. She 
had previously informed a correspondent that Dyce, 
whom she described as "a man of consummate taste," 
had reported the same view in almost the same words. 
The Dyce here mentioned was doubtless the Shake- 
spearean editor. It is a natural inference from her 
remark that he had seen the work, but it is probably 



532 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

an erroneous one; for Ms description of it precludes 
the idea of his possessing any real knowledge of its 
character. This is but one of several mistaken views 
of it which were pronounced with great positiveness 
before it came out to confound the utterers. A letter 
from the younger Hallam gives an account of a visitor 
in December, 1847, — just on the eve of publication — 
undertaking to characterize the poem, ''his fixed idea 
being that it was tremendously comic and that the 
merit turned on the quaint conceits of the plot." It 
was certainly fortunate for Tennyson that he never 
attempted to make the reality in any way correspond 
to this description. He had in certain ways a keen 
sense of humor, and was often happy in expressing it. 
He could produce characterizations which entertain 
us by their quaintness as well as by their accuracy 
of representation. He further enjoyed the purely 
comic; but it was as impossible for him to write it as 
it was for Milton. In all his humor there is a certain 
high seriousness. Behind its manifestations there is 
fairly sure to be a grim background. But when he 
comes to the lighter forms of badinage or persiflage, 
he is never at home. If any serious fault is to be laid 
to the charge of 'The Princess,' it is to be found in 
one or two places where he seems to be aiming after 
a fashion at that effect. 

The work underwent a good deal of revision 
and alteration during the years which immediately 
followed its publication. Besides changes in the text 
of individual lines, these consisted to a slight extent 
of omissions but mainly of additions. The second 



THE PRINCESS 533 

edition indeed, which came out in September, 1848, 
varied hardly at all from the first. The principal 
difference between the two consisted of the now pre- 
fixed dedication of the poem to Henry Lushington, 
who was not merely a close personal friend but one 
of the most trusted of Tennyson's literary advisers. 
But in the third edition which appeared at the begin- 
ning of February, 1850, numerous changes were made. 
To some extent they took the form of revision, but 
mainly of additions. These latter necessarily involved 
more or less of alteration, usually very slight, in the 
previously accepted text. The six intercalary songs 
were introduced. They had been in the poet's mind 
from the outset, but he had decided not to include 
them, because while deeming them the best interpreters 
of the poem, he had come to the conclusion that the 
work would explain itself. When he discovered that 
the public did not see his drift, which was to make the 
babe the central figure, he changed his mind. Altera- 
tions were also made in the body of the work as well 
as in the prologue and conclusion. Furthermore, there 
was then added the interlude which follows Part IV. 
Up to the appearance of the third edition, the whole 
poem had been in blank verse. Even the three songs 
which from the first it had contained were unrhymed. 
The introduction of these six intercalary lyrics in this 
edition was its most important feature so far as its 
effect upon the public was concerned. It gave the poem 
an attraction to many who had previously been dis- 
posed to look upon it with indifference or had been 
led by foolish criticism to speak of it with disparage- 



534 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ment. For this result there was ample reason. 
Effective as Tennyson was in blank verse — never more 
so than in 'The Princess' — it was his lyric gift that 
above everything else made him the favorite of the 
public which he became. Few are the men who have 
the leisure, even if they have the desire to familiarize 
themselves with even the greatest of long poems; 
fewer still have the mental equipment to recognize the 
consummate perfection of treatment in which part 
is made to answer to part, the skill with which the 
incidents are marshalled so as to lead inevitably to 
their destined conclusion. All this implies not only 
high cultivation but takes time and thought. Conse- 
quently such works can become favorites of but a 
limited number. But a lyric appeals to all. Its 
sentiment will be felt by the humblest who is perhaps 
unable to appreciate the exquisite delicacy of work- 
manship which impresses itself upon the intellectually 
highest. In consequence these six intercalary lyrics 
were at once circulated far and wide. As naturally 
they were made the subject of constant comment and 
critical judgment. A collection of the various and 
varying estimates put by different readers on their 
respective merits would be one of the curiosities of 
criticism, if any particular criticism, no matter what 
its character, is entitled to be called curious. Each 
of these lyrics had its partisans. The general voice 
apparently favored the bugle song which had been 
suggested by the echoes heard by Tennyson on Lake 
Killarney. To many what seemed the most effective 
of them all was the one beginning ' ' Ask me no more, ' ' 



THE PRINCESS 535 

indicating the final surrender of the Princess to the 
feelings against which she had been struggling. 

The fourth edition which followed in April, 1851, 
was distinguished by the regrettable addition of the 
''weird seizures" to which the Prince is represented 
as being subject. Various changes were in consequence 
rendered necessary. The conclusion, furthermore, was 
largely rewritten. The little more than half-dozen 
lines of the original opening were extended to thirty- 
two. Further on, forty lines were introduced, occa- 
sioned by the events which had followed the continental 
revolution of 1848. There was the usual complacent 
comparison between the sobriety and law-abiding 
character of the English as contrasted with the levity 
of the French. Then followed the fifth edition which 
was brought out towards the middle of February, 
1853. In it are found a number of minor changes; 
but the only important addition was the fourteen 
stirring lines of the prologue beginning with the words 
"0 miracle of women." This edition presents us the 
poem in its final definitive form. Very few and of very 
slight importance were the changes subsequently made. 
In consequence of the alterations and additions which 
it had received, the nearly three thousand lines of 
which it had originally consisted had been extended to 
over thirty-three hundred in spite of the omission of 
some twenty or thirty which had been thrown out in 
the recast made of the work. Furthermore, not only 
had about three hundred and fifty lines been added but 
there had been a modification of the language, espe- 
cially in the prologue and the epilogue, in the always 



536 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

hopeless attempt to meet the objections of unintelligent 
criticism. 

So much for the bibliographical details of the work. 
Now comes the consideration of its history and char- 
acter. The subject had been in Tennyson's mind long 
before he undertook the composition of the poem; for 
it was not until about 1845 that he set seriously about 
the task of preparation. As early as 1839, he had 
talked over the plan of the work with her who was 
later to become his wife. Upon the part woman ought 
to play in life he had very definite opinions. In this 
as in many other of his speculations he was as much 
in advance of his age as to some of those whose cause 
he then championed he would possibly seem behind 
now. There is nothing in the work, however, to indi- 
cate what was his position on the subjects of contro- 
versy to which public attention is at present more 
specifically directed. But to him the higher education 
of woman was a social question transcending in 
importance the great political ones which at that time 
occupied the thoughts and inflamed the passions of 
his countrymen. That any mode of education or non- 
education that tended to restrict her intellectual 
powers would not only work harm to her but to man 
also was his firm faith. Naturally he sympathized 
with every effort put forth to increase the facilities 
for her fullest development. 

In certain ways the adequate treatment of the 
subject presented peculiar difficulties ; especially so at 
that time. It had its serious side in the actual wrongs 



THE PRINCESS 537 

which woman had endured in the past and was con- 
tinuing to endure in the present. There was a further 
grievance in the obstacles which were encountered in 
every effort to remedy these wrongs. Upon all 
measures in this direction contumely had been regu- 
larly poured by hard-headed men who were in general 
difficult to convince because they were at the same 
time usually thick-headed. Nothing but abuse had 
waited upon the arguments of Mary Wollstonecraft 
in what to modern ears seems her peculiarly temperate 
statements of the right of her sex to an inde- 
pendent career and activity. On the other hand, 
loud applause was given even by women themselves 
to the sentimental slipslop of various pious advisers 
like, for instance, the Reverend Dr. Fordyce, who 
in his 'Sermons to Young Women,' assured them 
that ''men of sensibility desire in every woman soft 
features, a flowing voice, a form not robust, and a 
demeanour delicate and gentle. ' ' Far more endurable 
to women of sense than this senile maundering 
about her proper attitude and character is the brutal 
proclamation of her essential inferiority and heaven- 
ordained subjection to man which on more than one 
occasion Milton put forth; never more energetically 
than in the words he places in Eve's mouth at the 
beginning of one of the most beautiful passages in 
' Paradise Lost. ' It is in this way — sufficient of itself 
to account largely for the unhappiness of Milton's 
first marriage — that our first mother is represented 
as addressing Adam : 



538 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 
Unargued I obey. So God ordains: 
God is thy law, thou mine ; to know no more 
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. 

These words unquestionably represent Milton's atti- 
tude upon the relation of the sexes. It is perhaps 
needless to add that he who sets out to act upon such 
a view will ordinarily have in no very long time the 
consideration of the subject of divorce pressed upon 
his attention, even if he does not write treatises upon 
it. 

Naturally any self-respecting woman would feel out- 
raged at two such representations of her position and 
aims as those just taken from Fordyce and Milton. 
She would be more than justified in protesting vio- 
lently against indignities of this sort placed upon her 
sex. With these feelings, every intelligent man could 
sympathize. Unfortunately opposed to the serious 
side of the subject, there was a ludicrous one ; at least 
to the great majority of the public it seemed ludicrous. 
This was caused by the hysterical passion with which 
movements for the elevation of woman had been 
attended, and the extravagant views and expectations 
of what not merely could but certainly would be accom- 
plished as a result of her sharing every privilege 
possessed by man. Hence in order to get a hearing 
for his own ideas, Tennyson saw that it was necessary 
to take into account these two conflicting currents of 
thought and feeling. To effect this purpose he made 
the work, what he called it, a medley. The narrator 
is represented as saying that to relate the story 



THE PRINCESS 539 

properly it would be necessary to call back him who 
had told 'The Winter's Tale'; who had mingled in one 
artistic whole the past and the present, Christian belief 
and heathen practice ; who had brought into the same 
period of time Puritans singing psalms to horn pipes 
and messengers dispatched to consult the oracle of 
Apollo; who had given to Bohemia a seacoast and 
had placed Delphos on an island; who had made his 
first heroine queen of the Sicilia of classic times but 
likewise the daughter of the emperor of Eussia; 
and who in this remote pagan past had introduced 
sculptures which surpassed the work of the most noted 
of Raphael's disciples. 

All these diverse and conflicting elements Shake- 
speare had wrought into a whole so harmonious that 
only the unhappy pedant is disturbed by their appear- 
ance. Tennyson had determined to follow his example. 
If he could not do as well as the great master, he 
would do as well as he could. The whole scheme of 
his poem contemplated therefore the jumbling together 
of the past and the present. Not merely was it inti- 
mated, it was directly asserted, that there was to be 
confusion; that the manners of different periods were 
to be brought together ; that into the modes of thinking, 
into the moods of feeling, into the activities of the 
existing everyday world were to be thrust the modes, 
the moods, the activities of an outworn age. Fullest 
notice of this intention was given. It was implied in 
the very wording of the sub-title. For any help 
afforded by it in conveying the knowledge of it to the 
mind of the average critic, it might as well have been 



540 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

left unwritten. Never was greater reluctance to accept 
a work as the author designed it more pronounced and 
more violently proclaimed than in the sort of welcome 
with which 'The Princess' was greeted at its first 
appearance. Stupid as well as malignant criticism 
fell to Tennyson's lot during the whole of his career. 
That is the fate which befalls all great poets. 
But there was a peculiar obtuseness of perception 
in the immediate contemporary notices of the work 
in question that exceeded the justifiable inability to 
appreciate which we accord to the extreme st form of 
critical inanity. 

If Tennyson had expected to secure himself from 
attack by proclaiming his poem to be, what it was, a 
medley, he evinced little knowledge of the methods 
followed by no small number of the reviewing frater- 
nity. There are men who can never be satisfied with 
letting a great artist do his work in his own way. He 
must do it in accordance with some theory of their 
own of what it ought to be and how it ought to be 
done. In the opinion of these men, persons with the 
views the characters in this poem are represented as 
holding were under obligation to conduct themselves 
in exact consonance with the proprieties observed in 
modern life. As according to the framework of the 
poem, they manifestly could not do it, as they certainly 
did not do it, the feelings of these sticklers for con- 
ventional manners were distinctly outraged. They 
objected stoutly to Tennyson's course in creating a 
world whose dwellers did not act in conformity to the 
rules of etiquette which prevailed in the society of the 



THE PRINCESS 541 

nineteenth century. From the purely literary point 
of view they were shocked at his temerity in making 
the work a medley. This attitude was particularly 
noticeable in the reviews which appeared in the 
literary weeklies. These were naturally the first 
in the field. With only one exception among the 
more important of these periodicals — the article by 
John Forster in 'The Examiner' — their verdict was 
distinctly unfavorable as a whole. In general, it 
ranged all the way from semi-approval to positive 
condemnation. Something of this feeling continued 
to manifest itself even after critics had had time 
enough to gather their wits together suflSciently to 
understand what the author was aiming at. But 
even then they could not repress the desire that 
Tennyson should have done something else. One 
reviewer who admitted that in this poem Tennyson 
had pleaded the rights of women ''with a force and 
an eloquence which the world has scarcely witnessed 
before," nevertheless confessed his disappointment in 
its character. He had hoped and even anticipated 
from its title that it would be ' ' some wild and stirring 
tale of the old heroic time, or, more likely still — . . . 
some story wondrous, but poetical withal."^ 

Fortunately for these men, their criticisms have long 
been buried in the pages of forgotten or no longer 
read periodicals ; and the only reason for raking them 
now out of their dreary graves, is to make conspicuous 
the crass lack of appreciation with which Tennyson 
had to contend before his reputation had become 

1 'Eclectic Eeview,' April, 1848, Vol. XXIII (New Series), p. 415. 



542 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

so predominant that the most foolish and foolhardy 
of even anonymous assailants hardly ventured to 
attack him directly, but was forced to content him- 
self with insinuating depreciation. But that day had 
not then dawned. It is accordingly worth while to 
collect from reviews found in periodicals then existing 
a few expressions of opinion to denote the sort of 
welcome which the poem received at the outset from 
the professed leaders of public opinion. There was, 
of course, the general employment of the formula 
which has regularly characterized feeble criticism 
from a remote and even indefinite past, that the work 
under consideration would have been improved by 
care and condensation. Omission and revision might 
lead closely, at least, to that high and perfect excel- 
lence clearly comprehended by the keen vision of the 
reviewer, but not as yet discerned by the writer. But 
it was not so much to the length of the production as 
to its character that exception was taken. The cry 
arose at once on every side, Why had not Tennyson 
done something else? There was a general conviction 
expressed that he had been guilty of the grossest 
impropriety. An essentially correct idea of the 
twaddle, calling itself criticism, which fairly ran 
rampant for the weeks immediately following the 
publication of the poem, may be gained from a few 
illustrative citations. 

You are mixing up, said one, the manners of the 
past and the present. The different parts refuse to 
amalgamate with one another, said a second. The 
familiar and the conventional are out of keeping with 



THE PRINCESS 543 

the earnestness of the ideal, said a third. Lecture 
rooms and chivalric lists, modern pedantry and ancient 
romance, Tennyson was told, are antagonisms which 
no art can reconcile. You are uniting in one piece the 
grave and the burlesque. The ideal and the literal 
are constantly intermixed. The union of banter and 
fancy, of the serious and the satiric, is highly improper. 
These very phrases, and numerous others just as silly, 
are found in the leading literary weeklies of the time. 
The obvious fact that all this had been done inten- 
tionally, and that this intention had been proclaimed 
at the outset, did dawn at last upon the mind of some 
of the reviewers. But that proved no benefit to the 
author. He could not escape from responsibility by 
calling his poem a medley. He had chosen to misapply 
his powers. The point was insisted upon strongly 
that the poet had no right to compose works of this 
character. The consciousness of having selected an 
eccentric plan could not fairly be held to excuse it. 
One critic, when the fact finally forced itself upon his 
attention that all his exceptions had been anticipated 
by the author himself, calmly took the position that 
the prologue explaining the origin and character of 
the work was really an apologetic supplement. He 
derived great satisfaction from this assumption. 
"There is hope," he remarked, "that an error spon- 
taneously discerned and confessed will in future be 
avoided. ' ' 

One marked exception there was to this almost 
universal disparagement, or at best cold approbation, 



544 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

which the poem at first received. It came from 
'Howitt's Journal." This was a periodical of repute 
indeed, though of comparatively small circulation. It 
praised both the idea of the work and its execution. 
It hailed Tennyson as the poet of progress ; and there 
is no question that in regard to the rights and true 
social position of woman he was far in advance of the 
men of his day. The article was almost certainly the 
work of Mary Howitt; at least it represented accu- 
rately the sentiments she entertained. But her views, 
regarded then as extreme, would little suit those who 
are persuaded that the salvation of humanity lies in 
the possession of suffrage. ''Everything," she said of 
her sex, ''which is necessary to develop her powers, 
to perfect her nature, to establish her independence 
as a reasonable creature . . . must be secured for 
her." This involved not only the wife standing on 
an equal footing with her husband before the law, but 
the possession of equal property rights. There, how- 
ever, she stopped. On every attempt to turn woman 
into "a hard, bold, public and prating she-man," as 
she expressed it, she looked with aversion. Accord- 
ingly, she celebrated the ' ' perfect instinct ' ' of the poet, 
"true to nature and common sense." He had shown 
in his poem the "inevitable tendency and results of 
the doctrines of those who, to enfranchise woman, 
would unwoman her." Then she quoted from it an 
extract, in which, according to her the true philosophy 
of the question was given, "clear, simple, strong and 

1 Vol. Ill, p. 28. 



THE PRINCESS 545 

irrefragable." This is the passage beginning with 
the line, 

The woman's cause is man's. 

The words which follow have an interest of their own. 
because they very certainly represented Tennyson's 
view of the relation of the sexes. 

But favorable notices of the work, involving com- 
prehension not only of its workmanship but of its 
purport, were exceedingly rare at the outset. Unin- 
telligent criticism there was in abundance. By the 
periodicals having then the largest circulation and 
naturally the most influence, the work was generally 
termed a failure. This view was not limited to such 
as from the beginning had looked upon Tennyson's 
production with ill-concealed dislike. It was conceded 
with apparent reluctance by some who, after a fashion, 
professed admiration for it and perhaps felt for it a 
lukewarm regard which they in all honesty mistook 
for that feeling. With his usual sensitiveness to criti- 
cism Tennyson was a good deal distressed by the 
hostile reception which the work met at the very 
outset. In moments of depression, he expressed him- 
self as inclined to abandon any further writing of 
poetry. Later indeed he is said to have felt regret 
that he did not connect the subject with some stronger 
and more serious framework than what he called a 
medley.^ If so, the regret was very needless; for at 
the time of its production a framework of the sort he 
chose was much the most effective for the end he had 

IF. W, Farrar's 'Men I have Eaiown,' 3897, p. 19. 



546 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

in view. He was dealing with what was to him a 
serious theme ; and to most men of that day it was not 
serious. If, however, the adverse criticism troubled 
him at first, it could not have troubled him long, as it 
ought not to have troubled him at all. The hostility 
of anonymous reviewers, whose opinions, if their 
names were known, it would have seemed peculiarly 
absurd to heed, were soon forgotten in the welcome 
which the work received from the great body of 
cultivated men. 

Tennyson himself seems to have been as little aware 
as were the majority of the early critics of 'The 
Princess' of the change which had taken place in his 
position from the time when he had made his first 
appearance as an author. The sort of hostility which 
might have brought about an adverse reception of a 
little-known poet, such as he was in 1832, would have 
the slightest possible effect upon the fortunes of one 
whose reputation was now solidly established. It very 
speedily became evident that he had now gained an 
audience that evinced not the slightest disposition to 
take the opinion of his productions from the hasty 
examination of men engaged under pressure in the 
weekly task of applause or condenmation. In all 
great work the sense of its greatness grows upon 
readers, the more time they have to make themselves 
familiar with it. Accordingly the commendation of 
even the exceedingly few who had been outspoken in 
their praise at the beginning seemed very faint when 
contrasted with the fervid eulogies which later came 
to appear. 



THE PRINCESS 547 

As weeks went on the appreciation of the poem 
advanced not only steadily but rapidly. With its 
growing popularity naturally went along its increas- 
ing sale. The detractors who had been specially 
vociferous when the book made its first appearance 
were in no short time reduced to silence if not to 
repentance. The general interest in it and admiration 
for it, with the consequent familiarity with it which 
followed, are made manifest by the number of lines 
and phrases which have been contributed from it to 
our stock of common quotations. This is no necessary 
proof of the excellence of a work ; but it is a conclusive 
one as to its popularity. The general approbation the 
poem met soon showed itself in the changed tone of 
the critical press. It is very noticeable in the case 
of this publication that the longer the reviews of it 
were delayed, the more cordial and appreciative they 
were. When the shock produced by the unexpected 
character of the work had been dissipated, the exceed- 
ing foolishness of the early hostile notices of it struck 
men forcibly. In more than one instance, attempts 
were made in the later criticisms to correct the 
unintelligent misapprehensions which had character- 
ized the earlier. Their complete misunderstanding of 
the nature and intention of the poem was brought out 
distinctly. Accordingly, with the progress of time the 
contemporary praise of 'The Princess' was more and 
more loudly expressed. It may be said to have culmi- 
nated in Aubrey de Vere 's review in the ' Edinburgh, '^ 
in which excessive laudation of the work as a whole 

1 Vol. XC, p. 388, October, 1849. 



548 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was mingled with the scantiest measure of criticism 
of details; and again in the enthusiastic eulogy 
which Charles Kingsley paid it about a year later in 
'Eraser's Magazine.'^ 

These later reviews had done indeed little more than 
record what had come to be the opinion of the educated 
public. This had declared itself unmistakably in the 
reception given to the poem. In its case, Tennyson's 
frequent, one might almost call it his regular, expe- 
rience had been repeated. This was the cool reception 
of any new work of his, if not its actual condemnation, 
by the great body of its early critics, and its enthu- 
siastic welcome and constantly increasing appreciation 
by the great body of cultivated readers. As in so 
many other instances the public was altogether wiser 
than those who assumed to advise it. The number of 
copies of the first edition has been given as two 
thousand;^ but the poet's reputation was now so 
firmly established that this number must have been 
exceeded in those which were later put upon the 
market. The dates of the successive editions bear 
convincing witness to the steadily growing popularity 
of the work. Indeed, Charles Kingsley in his review 
of Tennyson 's poetry in 1850, while giving enthusiastic 
praise to 'The Princess,' forbore to make many 
quotations from it on the avowed ground that such a 
course was unnecessary because the poem was already 
familiar to every one. 

iVol. XLII, p. 245, September, 1850, 

2 Wise 's ' Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, * 
Vol. I, p. 100. 



THE PRINCESS 549 

Singular, indeed, and altogether exaggerated trib- 
utes to the greatness of the poem came, too, from 
quarters where naturally they would seem little to be 
expected. One in particular was from the Praeraph- 
aelite circle. Students of literature come to be fairly 
familiar with the critical vagaries of eminent men 
of letters, their ability to find exquisite pleasure 
in what the rest of the world finds unendurable, and 
the height to which they carry their enthusiasm for 
works which appear to others merely excellent. It 
is well known that it was only in the Praeraphaelite 
circle that Browning found approvers and applauders 
in the days of his obscuration after the publication of 
his 'Sordello.' Unpopular and unread everywhere 
else, his works were hailed by them as of highest 
value and significance. In his diary under date of 
December 8, 1849, William Rossetti reports a conver- 
sation between his brother and the sculptor and poet, 
Woolner. The conclusion at which they aimed mani- 
festly struck him as bordering on the treasonable. 
"Woolner," he tells us, "came in the evening, when 
Gabriel read The Princess through to him, and both 
of them pronounced it the finest poem since Shake- 
speare, superior even to Sordello.^^ The veteran 
student of literature becomes so hardened to the 
numerous works which have been pronounced by 
competent judges the finest since Shakespeare that 
this particular commendation is not likely of itself to 
make any special impression. It is the concluding 
clause, "superior even to Sordello,^^ that brings 
surprise and delight. But to the reporter of the con- 



550 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

versation it brought pain. The younger Rossetti tells 
us he could not agree with the wild ebullition of 
enthusiasm which reckoned 'The Princess' superior 
even to ' Sordello. ' * ' To the latter opinion, ' ' he added, 
*'l demur. "^ 

Reluctant testimony to the favor the poem had met 
with, had been borne shortly after its publication by 
FitzGerald, who had now begun to take up the role 
which he never laid aside, of mourning over the failure 
of Tennyson to reach some lofty but unnamed ideal, 
which he himself professed to have in mind but never 
clearly outlined. In a letter of May, 1848, to Frederick 
Tennyson, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the 
poem; but he admitted that he was singular in his 
opinion. ''I am considered," he added, ''a great 
heretic for abusing it ; it seems to me a wretched waste 
of power at a time of life when a man ought to be doing 
his best ; and I almost feel hopeless about Alfred now. 
I mean, about his doing what he was born to do. ' ' As 
these words prove, FitzGerald was not satisfied with 
the work. He indeed was not satisfied with anything 
that Tennyson wrote after the appearance of the 
volumes of 1842. In his opinion, everything which 
came out subsequently indicated a falling-off. Some- 
how the poet had failed to fulfil his early promise. 
Exactly what he desired his friend to do, it is no easy 
matter to make out. Had he been called upon to define 
it himself in precise terms, he would in all probability 
have abandoned the task in despair. At any rate if 
it were clear to his own mind, he never made it clear 

1 ' Praeraphaelite Diaries, ' edited by W. M. Eossetti, p. 236. 



THE PRINCESS 551 

to the mind of any one else. Tennyson manifestly 
could never have satisfied him. What he wanted him 
to do, whatever it was, was always something different 
from what he did do. ' The Princess ' did not suit him. 
'In Memoriam' did not suit him. 'Maud' did not suit 
him. Both Carlyle and himself, he said, gave the poet 
up after the production of 'The Princess.' 

The opinions of two men of genius, but peculiarly 
crotchety in their notions, are of not much real signifi- 
cance. FitzGerald in particular was a man of curious 
tastes and prejudices, of curious likes and dislikes. 
He rated Frederick Tennyson as being almost as great 
a poet as Alfred. He could not endure Jane Austen. 
He could not read George Eliot. With Browning in 
particular, he had no patience whatever, and even less, 
were that possible, with the men who were chanting 
his praises. "I abuse Browning myself," he wrote 
to Tennyson late in 1867, "and get others to abuse 
him ; and write to you about it ; for the sake of easing 
my own heart — not yours. Why is it . . . that, while 
the Magazine critics are belauding him, not one of the 
men I know, who are not inferior to the writers in the 
Athenaeum, Edinburgh, etc. can endure, and (for the 
most part) can read him at all?" Then he went on to 
quote the opinions of Cowell, Thompson, Donne, and 
Carlyle. Even Pollock himself, who was a great friend 
of Browning, admitted that he could not succeed in 
getting through 'The Ring and the Book,' though he 
had tried to do so three times. Accordingly, he pre- 
tended to have read it and let the poet so suppose. 



552 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

''Who then," continued FitzGerald, ''are the people 
that write the nonsense in the Reviews?"^ 

FitzGerald 's estimates of English poetry and poets 
were certainly never of the conventional sort. They 
make his belief in his own critical insight more a 
matter of curiosity than of trust. He had little admira- 
tion for Shelley. "What a fuss," he wrote, "the 
cockneys make about Shelley just now, surely not 
worth Keats' little finger."^ Swinburne met with no 
favor in his eyes. Matthew Arnold he set down as 
"a pedant." "Is Mr. Rossetti a Great Poet like 
Browning and Morris ? " he wrote. ' ' So the Athenceum 
tells me. Dear me, how thick Great Poets do grow 
nowadays." On the other hand he clung to Crabbe 
with a devotion almost pathetic after that author had 
become to the rest of the world, save the special 
student of literature, little more than a name. Still, 
though he professed himself disappointed in Tenny- 
son's not having accomplished the work, whatever 
that was, he was appointed to do, he never abandoned 
his faith in him as the greatest genius of his genera- 
tion. The regard which existed between him and the 
Paltry Poet, as he was wont to designate him in the 
letters he wrote to Tennyson's wife, never knew 
abatement. It must always be a matter of regret that 
he did not live to read the affectionate dedication to 
himself of the volume entitled 'Tiresias,' which his 
own sudden death snatched from his sight just as it 
was on the point of coming out. 

1* Tennyson and his Friends,' p. 118, article by Dr. Warren, Presi- 
dent of Magdalen. 

2 Ibid., p. 121, article by Dr. Warren. 



THE PRINCESS 553 

There is, however, no question that there was agree- 
ment in other quarters with FitzGerald 's general view ; 
though, had it come to specific detail, there would have 
been wdde dissent. It is a striking illustration of the 
hold that Tennyson had already gained over the minds 
of men that so many were eager to point out to him 
the precise path it was his duty to follow. One 
persistent demand was made upon him by the critical 
fraternity that he should set out to produce some one 
great work, apparently some bulky work. Even 
Spedding, the sagest of all his friends, in his review 
of the 'Poems' of 1842, pressed upon him the necessity 
of concentrating his energies upon a production of 
this character. Exactly what his advisers had in mind 
was indeed left very vague. The review of 'The 
Princess' in 'The Examiner' — pretty certainly the 
work of John Forster — was about the only early 
article in the influential weekly critical press of that 
time which was outspoken in its praise. Yet the critic, 
while conceding the poem to be a great advance upon 
the previous productions of its author, complained that 
it was not great enough. Why did he not do something 
else I The ' ' set, ' ' he was told, whose tastes and prefer- 
ences he was too much in the habit of consulting, was 
not the world for which he should be writing. It soon 
became manifest that this set embraced about all the 
world whose opinions were worth heeding. 

Why, further, said the critic, does not Tennyson 
assume his mission? Why had he discredited it with 
trifling and unworthy puerilities? "Mission" was 
the burden under which the unfortunate poet of those 



554 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

days was compelled to stagger, just as now he is under 
the necessity of bearing a ** message." Tennyson's 
mission, so far as it can be made out from the some- 
what obscure utterances of the time, was to write a 
big book, a solemn book, in which there should be no 
grafting of the burlesque upon the serious, a book 
which all critics would agree in mentioning with 
respect if not with praise, and which all persons really 
fond of poetry would carefully avoid reading. To 
advice of this sort Tennyson then turned a deaf ear. 
He wrote much, and in many measures, and on many 
subjects. But he must have been aware — if he was 
not, other men were — that he was pre-eminently a 
lyric poet. As a lyric poet he will always be best and 
most permanently known. Lyric productions, further- 
more, have the advantage of being comparatively 
brief. Long poems will, without doubt, always con- 
tinue to be written; seldom will they become familiar 
to many. The instances are rare in which a single one 
of them will reach more than a limited circle of 
readers. Even to the majority of these it will not 
appeal for more than a limited time. There are 
those who think it will deserve that fate only. 
Few certainly there are who would not gladly exchange 
whole books of 'The Excursion' for three compara- 
tively short pieces equal to the 'Lines on Tintern 
Abbey,' 'Laodamia' and the 'Ode on the Intimations 
of Immortality.' 

Besides writing a work, the matter and manner of 
which did not conform to the preconceptions of his 
early critics and which did not suit what they called 



THE PRINCESS 555 

their taste, and incidentally failing to fulfil his mission, 
there was in their eyes a still further grievance. In 
this work, Tennyson had made some daring experi- 
ments in meter. Certain of them he himself may in 
time have been led to regard as too daring. He had 
been a careful student of blank verse, and had come 
to feel that in order to have it produce its proper 
effect, the monotony of the regularly recurring rhythm 
must be varied, so far as the measure would permit. 
It is manifest to any serious student of the poet's 
writings that all these variations from the normal 
were made designedly. They were made, too, with 
that consummate mastery of versification which 
Tennyson invariably manifested. But to the critics 
who counted syllables, to whom any violation of 
exactitude was a crime, his disregard of conventional 
rules was an unforgivable offence. It was generally 
agreed that either the poet could not scan, or that he 
considered himself too great a person to adapt his 
verses to any such requirement. The latter was the 
general view. Accordingly, he was solemnly warned 
that correct monotony is less displeasing than awkward 
and unnecessary license. 

As a matter of fact, much of Tennyson's finest 
metrical workmanship is found in ^The Princess.' 
Such was his own opinion. "Some of the blank verse 
in this poem is among the best I ever wrote," he said 
later. But these daring experiments in versification 
annoyed and confounded, or rather outraged his early 
critics. They gave unmeasured vent to their dissatis- 
faction. They spoke of them as exhibiting not liberty 



556 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

but license. ''False and deficient quantities," said 
one of the London literary weeklies, "occur with a 
frequency which suggest that they have been deliber- 
ately adopted." ''The merest mechanics of verse- 
making are frequently disregarded," said another. 
Then it proceeded to quote a passage as prose which 
it said might be broken up into lines but could not be 
turned into verse. This obstacle more intelligent 
readers have succeeded in overcoming. "There is," 
said one of the silliest of these early reviews, ' ' a total 
indifference to the artistical rules of verse or the 
commonest semblance of poetry, which not only pre- 
vents all choice or charm of manner supplying some 
of the defects of matter and subject, but continually 
repels the reader unless when it excites his surprise." 
Such was the general tone of much of the early criti- 
cism which occasionally extended even to later. It 
never evidently occurred to any of these writers that 
a man who was a great poet might possibly under- 
stand the nature of the vehicle he employed as well 
as those who could not attain to the dignity of being 
even small poets; indeed might even understand it 
better. 

All views of this sort died out finally with the 
progress of intelligence ; but at the time itself the only 
defence of Tennyson's practice which has fallen under 
my own observation came out in an American review 
of the poem.^ This was the work of Professor Hadley, 
whose comparatively early death was one of the 
greatest losses which scholarship in this country has 

1 'New Englander,' Vol. VII, p. 193, May,- 1849. 



THE PRINCESS 557 

ever been compelled to suffer. Hadley pointed out 
the extraordinary pains that had been taken in the 
construction of the verse, and the skill with which 
this had been accomplished. He spoke in detail of 
Tennyson's bold adoption of rhythmical and metrical 
expedients which had once been in regular use, but 
had now come to be discredited by the finical taste of 
later times. For this freedom, stigmatized as license, 
had been substituted a passion for monotonous uni- 
formity. From this servility to mere form the poet 
had broken away. Among the various instances of 
this revolt from modern punctiliousness he specified 
the occurrence in the line of syllables beyond the 
orthodox number: the substitution of a trochaic foot 
for an iambic; the blending of the fijial vowel of one 
word with the initial syllable of the one following, 
especially when the latter begins with a vowel or weak 
consonant, or rather its rapid pronunciation so that 
the foot was apparently not lengthened. As a result 
of this last proceeding, a short syllable was sometimes 
treated as if it formed no place in the meter, and 
a dissyllable was in consequence converted into a 
monosyllable. 

In America the edition of 'The Princess' was 
brought out in February, 1848, nearly two months 
after its appearance in England.^ Nowhere have I 

1 In his journal under date of January 25, 1848, Longfellow tella 
us that he ' ' found Fields correcting the proofs of the second edition 
of Tennyson's Princess, the first, one thousand copies, having been sold 
within a few weeks" ('Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,' Vol. II, 
p. 109). This is somewhat inexplicable. According to all other testi- 
mony there is no record of the publication of the work in this country 
before the middle of February, and the first American edition bears 
the date of 1848. For one proof out of many, the Boston correspondent 



558 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

been able to discover in the critical literature of this 
country anything resembling the hostile attitude 
assumed towards the poem by the English weekly 
press on its publication. The commendation in certain 
instances was more or less half-hearted, but there 
must have been but little outspoken condemnation. 
Of course, there prevailed also a certain amount of 
the usual perfunctory criticism. Especially was this 
to be found in the quarters where still lingered the 
habit of re-echoing the opinion expressed in England. 
The various and varying sentiments entertained by 
admirers and censurers can be found adequately 
represented in a dialogue between three different 
imaginary characters, written by Charles Astor 
Bristed and entitled 'A Talk about the Princess.'^ 
There is in this article another one of those singular 
literary prophecies which rise up constantly to con- 
found those who are disposed to put their faith in 
the predictions of critics. The man who was soon 
to become the most popular poet of the century in all 
English-speaking lands, we are told here, was then 
and always is to be ''caviare to the general." Even 
at the time this view would hardly be borne out by a 
good deal of the criticism which the work had already 
everywhere received. There was indeed expressed on 

of ' The New York Literary World, ' under date of February 5, announces 
as the most remarkable event of the year that a new poem by Tennyson 
was soon to appear, called 'The Princess.' He had been privileged to 
see the proof sheets and from the work he quoted a number of passages. 
Furthermore, it was not until the number of the 'Literary World' for 
February 26 that Ticknor advertised the poem as having just been 
published. Longfellow apparently must have been told of some new 
edition of the 'Poems' previously published. 

1 'The American Eeview, a Whig Journal,' for July, 1848. 



THE PRINCESS 559 

this side of the Atlantic in several quarters a degree 
of praise for the poem which might justly be called 
extravagant even by its warmest admirers. It is 
evident that by this time Tennyson had gained a body 
of enthusiastic partisans in this country. 

There is remarkable proof of this in one American 
criticism, which is worthy of special mention. It came 
from James Russell Lowell and is found in 'The 
Massachusetts Quarterly Review,' a periodical which 
flourished from 1848 to 1850.^ As it appeared in a 
publication which had but a short life, as it has never 
been included in any reprint of Lowell's works, and 
is practically no longer accessible to most readers, it 
is worth while to give a fairly faithful summary of 
its contents; for it represents very accurately the 
feelings which had now come to prevail among the 
young and ardent partisans of the poet, and in par- 
ticular the contemptuous attitude they had begun to 
assume towards his decriers. The opening part of it 
was according to all appearance aimed at the critical 
comment which had been published in the London 
literary weeklies ; for there is very little to be found 
in the notices the work received on this side of the 
Atlantic to deserve the censure to which Lowell gave 
utterance. His words are further noticeable because 
the writer came to be somewhat critical of Tennyson, 
as his own life drew to a close. In Lowell's opinion 
the poet's later production did not stand on as high 
a level of achievement as his earlier. It will perhaps 
be conceded by the majority of his most fervent 

1 Vol. I, pp. 256-259, March, 1848. 



560 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

admirers that with a few magnificent exceptions, what 
Tennyson wrote after the age of fifty did not come up 
to what he wrote during his first thirty years of 
authorship. 

Lowell opened his review of this "delicious poem," 
as at the end he styled it, with contemptuous remarks 
upon those who had decried it. He had heard, he said, 
that Timms had pronounced it an entire failure. 
Timms, he added, is the man who protects his fellow 
citizens from being too easily pleased. He has a 
battery erected, mounted with what he calls the 
received canons of criticism; is familiar with all 
schools of poetry and looks at them from the same 
point of view. The public, he thought, had a curious 
predilection for having its opinions made up for it 
by the Timmses. This is perhaps true, at least for 
a time in the case of unknown authors; but it will 
hardly hold good of those of them who have already 
achieved reputation. At all events, it is manifest that 
in tliis instance Lowell was very far from sharing in 
the opinion which he had ascribed to Timms. Nowhere 
can there be found in contemporary, or for that 
matter, in later criticism, a more glowing tribute to 
the excellence of both poem and poet. "We read the 
book through," he wrote, "with a pleasure which 
heightened to unqualified delight, and ended in admira- 
tion. The poem is unique in conception and execution. 
It is one of the few instances in literature where a 
book is so true to the idiosyncrasy of its author that 
we cannot conceive of the possibility of its being 
written by any other person, no matter how gifted." 



THE PRINCESS 561 

Lowell further added a remark to the effect that 
the very excellence of Tennyson's workmanship had 
to a certain extent led to the depreciation of it, or, at 
any rate, to the lack of appreciation. ' ' His conception 
is always clear," he said, ''his means exactly adequate, 
and his finish perfect. So entirely free is he from any 
appearance of effort, that many have been led to under- 
rate him, and to praise his delicacy at the expense of 
his strength. ' ' All of Lowell 's review was in keeping 
with these preliminary criticisms. Indeed he may 
almost be said to have rivalled Poe in the degree of 
praise he gave to the poet. "Perfection of form," 
was his conclusion, "seems to be with him a natural 
instinct, not an attainment." "We must therefore 
regard 'The Princess,' " he went on to say, "as the 
work of a master, and it must argue a poverty in our- 
selves, if we cannot see it as a harmonious whole. 
For so perfect is Tennyson's appreciation of his own 
strength, that he has never in a single instance fallen 
below himself. His self-command is not the least 
wonderful quality in him." Lowell was especially 
struck by his profound and delicate comprehension 
of female character as shown in the poem. One result 
of it, he pointed out, was the gradual absorption of 
the writer in his subject, the growing predominance 
of the poet over the mere story-teller, as the higher 
relations existing between his characters appealed to 
him, and the creative faculty felt itself more and more 
tasked. 

It has been worth while to give a full account of the 
early derogatory contemporary criticism, not so much 



562 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

because it is occasionally echoed at the present day, 
but because it exemplifies the state of mind with which 
any great work of art is approached by a certain class 
of persons, if it presents anything novel in its plan 
or treatment. The one thing that shocks these critics 
above everything else is originality. They have 
formed for themselves certain canons by which to 
judge the works brought to their consideration. If 
any production fails to conform to these, it never 
occurs to them that it is not the work under exami- 
nation which is at fault but the canons they have 
adopted. We have had occasion to see that the history 
of this poem shows how speedily the verdict of the 
general public of the cultivated class overrode the 
unfavorable pronouncements of its earliest critics. 
The reason is obvious. In certain ways *The Princess' 
is one of the most perfect of Tennyson's works. This 
is not to say that it is highest in aim or noblest in 
subject, though both aim and subject are high and 
noble. But in variety of interest, in the due proportion 
of means to ends, in the marvellous adaptation of 
treatment of the varying conditions of the subject- 
matter, never degenerating into the purely burlesque, 
never straining beyond the legitimate expression of 
high-wrought feeling — and both these temptations 
beset the poet constantly — he has succeeded in pro- 
ducing within its limitations what might in justice 
be called a nearly perfect work of art. 

It is observable, as suggested by Lowell, that, as the 
action proceeds, whatever there is of mock-heroic in 
the character of the heroine or of the story itself. 



THE PRINCESS 563 

fades more and more into the background as the play 
of the great elemental forces which control the lives 
of all of us becomes predominant. Inevitably, perhaps 
unconsciously, the voice of the poet assumes a loftier 
tone as his high conception of the true relation of the 
sexes reveals itself with distincter clearness to his 
mental vision. This more and more absorbed his 
thoughts and feelings as he proceeded in the narration 
of the story, and gradually changed the character of 
the work from its original intention. He himself 
recognized the fact and acknowledged it in the con- 
clusion. In the original version, he said. 

Here closed our compound story which at first 

Had only meant to banter little maids 

With mock-heroics and with parody; 

But slipt in some strange way, crost with burlesque, 

From mock to earnest, even into tones 

Of tragic. 

All this was changed in the third edition of 1850. In 
that the poet dilated still further upon the fact of this 
transition from the mock to the real heroic. Incident- 
ally, too, he revealed his own sensitiveness to the 
criticism of which he had been made the subject. As 
the conclusion now stands, the words read as follows : 

"What style could suit? 
The men required that I should give throughout 
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 
With which we banter 'd little Liha first: 
The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 
For something in the ballads which they sang, 
Or in their silent influence as they sat. 



564 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 

A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 

Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

And yet to give the story as it rose, 

I moved as in a strange diagonal. 

And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

The one serious defect in the poem is the essentially 
uninteresting character of the Prince. We do not 
expect indeed in the hero of a tale, who is also its 
narrator, a proclamation, still less an exaltation of 
the heroic in his own nature. Still, to make him an 
object of regard for the reader there should be a 
suggestion of its possibility. Mild and amiable he is 
represented as being, with not merely correct but noble 
sentiments, and with fullest devotion to the woman 
whom he has never seen but to whom he has been 
proxy-wedded. Furthermore, we can concede him the 
fullest sympathy with the ends at which his destined 
bride aims, though not sharing her belief in the means 
to attain it or in the proper relation of the sexes. But 
everywhere in the poem is left on the reader's mind 
the feeling that there is something lacking in the 
character — the impression of a certain gentleness, 
tending to degenerate into feebleness, the attitude of 
a love-sick boy, not that of a strong, earnest, and 



THE PRINCESS 565 

determined man. The Prince is not ignobly weak, but 
still he is weak; and the sense of his weakness is 
rendered more emphatic by its contrast with the 
strength and loftiness of the nature of the Princess, 
who with all her errors is not only every inch a woman, 
but every inch a queen. All this was manifest in the 
poem as it originally appeared; but in the later 
and definitive form it assumed, it was disagreeably 
accentuated. 

As a general rule, Tennyson's afterthoughts and 
changes, whether in the shape of omissions or addi- 
tions, are distinct improvements. There are a few 
exceptions, and here is one of the few. It was bad 
enough so to portray the personages of the story 
that the hero is completely overshadowed by the 
heroine and one is almost tempted to think poorly of 
her for falling in love with him at all. The character 
of the Princess was deservedly a favorite with Tenny- 
son himself. It was doubtless intended that the Prince 
should not come up to her height. For that matter, 
as she is depicted, few men would. This, however, can 
hardly be regarded as a justification for making the 
inferiority of the hero so pronounced as it was even 
in the first instance. But not content with having 
impressed upon the reader's mind at the outset a sense 
of this inferiority, Tennyson proceeded in the later 
version of the poem to make the inferiority seem even 
more inferior by the introduction of a physical defect 
which conduced still further to his undesirability. To 
represent him as subject to ''weird seizures," as 
Tennyson did in the fourth and subsequent editions, 



566 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

was still further to widen the gap which existed 
between the two originally. It is not likely that the 
affliction, which the court physician politely murmurs 
as catalepsy, would recommend a suitor to any woman, 
least of all to one possessed of so lofty a nature, both 
mental and physical, as the Princess. Certainly, it 
does not recommend him to the reader. 

One explanation has been given of this addition to 
the effect that Tennyson himself came more and more 
to be sensible of the inferiority of the hero to the 
heroine. Accordingly, he set up the weird seizures 
as an explanation of the failure of the Prince to reach 
the height which the Princess occupies without effort. 
If so, it was an unfortunate expedient to which he 
resorted; for the characteristic designed to palliate 
the weakness of the character serves only to aggravate 
it. Far more likely is it that Tennyson was led to 
introduce these weird seizures because to a certain 
extent they were suggested by peculiar experiences 
of his own. From his boyhood he was subject to what 
for the lack of a better name he called waking trances. 
A transcript of these may be found in the ninety-fifth 
section of *In Memoriam,' and in the concluding lines 
of 'The Holy Grail,' in which King Arthur gives his 
reasons for not taking part in its quest. A prose 
version of the same mental phenomenon was furnished 
by Tennyson himself in a letter written in 1874. In 
it he gave to a correspondent a feeble description, as 
he said, of a state which in his opinion it was beyond 
the power of words to represent accurately. "This," 
he wrote, ''has often come upon me through repeating 



THE PRINCESS 567 

my own name to myself silently till, all at once, as it 
were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of 
individuality the individuality itself seemed to dissolve 
and fade away into boundless being, and this not a 
confused state, but the clearest, the surest of the 
surest, utterly beyond words, where death was an 
almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality 
(if so it were) seeming no extinction, but only the 
true life."^ All such experience is proper enough for 
him who leads a contemplative life. Especially is it 
proper for a poet. To a man of action, however, such 
as the Prince is designed to be, experiences of this sort 
are totally unbefitting in circumstances when action 
is imperatively called for. As a consequence, instead 
of elevating the character, they tend to lower it. 

1 Letter of May 7, 1874, as cited in John Cumuig Walters 's ' In 
Tennyson Land,' p. 38. 



CHAPTER XXI 
POET LAUREATE 

On the twenty-third of April, 1850, Wordsworth 
died. He had hardly been laid in his grave when 
discussion sprang up as to who should succeed him as 
poet laureate. It extended to the desirability of 
continuing the office. There were those who thought 
that it was high time that this post, whose duties had 
now become nominal, should be abolished. Others who 
were averse to so radical a measure took the ground 
that its character should be changed. All sorts of 
propositions indeed were urged in regard to the 
position. One, for instance, was to the effect that it 
should be granted for but a single year with the right, 
however, of reappointment. It was to be continued 
in the hands of the same holder during what might 
be called good behavior. The most powerful of the 
London dailies advocated the abolition of the title 
altogether.'^ It had become, it said, nothing but a 
nickname. The emoluments connected with the office 
should be bestowed upon a deserving man of letters 
without the ridiculous accompaniment of the bays. 
''The title," it continued, ''is no longer an honour." 
The phrase "no longer" presents a certain difficulty 
to the student of literary history. He would be some- 

1' Times,' April 25, 1850. 



POET LAUREATE 569 

what at a loss to discover any prolonged period in the 
past when it was regarded as an honor by any one else 
than the actual holder. It required, the writer added, 
the reputation of a Southey or a Wordsworth to carry 
them without injury to their fame through an office 
so entirely removed from the ideas and habits of the 
present time, and which in the past had been frequently 
rendered disreputable both by the character and the 
abilities of its holder. 

Almost from the beginning, indeed, the office of poet 
laureate had had a good deal of the time a fairly fatal 
tendency to fall into contempt. As long as one of its 
duties was the production of odes for set occasions, 
this was inevitable; for poetry produced to order is 
in general one of the most deplorable results of human 
incapacity. But the degradation of the office had been 
mainly due to its having been conferred as a reward 
for party allegiance or political service. After Dryden 
had been deprived of the position, it was held by a 
succession of poetical nonentities from the days of 
Shadwell to those of Pye, the poorness of which is 
little relieved by the names of Rowe and Warton. 
Hence the most eminent men were unwilling to accept 
it. Gray refused it; so did Walter Scott. Southey 
was willing to take it, for he thought himself as being 
on the whole the greatest poet of his generation, and 
accordingly the office was a legitimate tribute to his 
eminence. He could not bring to the position great 
poetic ability; but he could and did bring it respecta- 
bility. His successor, Wordsworth, conferred upon it 
reputation. Consequently, when he died, no one 



570 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

seemed to the men of that day fitted to take his place. 
Hence arose the demand for the abolition of the office 
altogether or a complete change in its character. 

Even before Wordsworth died, there had been 
occasional talk as to the one likely to be chosen as his 
successor. Some of the names suggested — then as well 
as afterwards — sound oddly enough now. "Writers 
were occasionally mentioned — and that, too, by men 
of intelligence — whom it is hard to conceive as having 
been thought of by any rational being. One of them 
was the Quaker poet, Bernard Barton. To him 
in December, 1846, William Bodham Donne wrote 
expressing the opinion that if the office became vacant 
he would be selected for the position. ' ' If the Daddy, ' ' 
he said — Daddy was the name applied to Wordsworth 
by some of his younger admirers — ''was to die, I 
think you would be made laureate." As the death of 
Barton took place before that of the holder of the 
office, his name necessarily did not come up for consid- 
eration ; but his chances for receiving the position were 
precisely the same after that event as they would have 
been before it. Another poet thought of by some, 
especially those of the older generation, was Henry 
Taylor. He himself informs us that George Cornwall 
Lewis, then a member of Lord John KusselPs first 
administration, meeting him after the death of Words- 
worth, told him that he had suggested to the prime 
minister that the laureateship should be offered to him. 
Lewis was surprised to hear that Tennyson had been 
under consideration. In his opinion that poet was but 
little known, and his claims would not be generally 



POET LAUREATE 571 

recognized. "Living," wrote Taylor, "amongst the 
men in London who were the most eminent in litera- 
ture, he had yet lived so far apart from poetry, that 
the poet who for some years past had eclipsed every 
other in popularity was supposed by him to be 
obscure." After reading the account of this conver- 
sation, we hardly need Taylor's further assurance that 
the mind of Lewis was essentially prosaic. 

At the time itself, indeed, any one who had the 
slightest claim to distinction as a writer of verse was 
fairly sure to be suggested by somebody. In certain 
cases it was done with the consent of the person 
mentioned, in other cases without it. Even the name 
of that sorry rhymester, Charles Mackay, was brought 
to the attention of the public. Mackay 's earlier 
excursions in poetry were almost as wretched as his 
later excursions in philology. But he had the good 
fortune to have certain of his pieces made generally 
familiar as songs. In consequence he owed to the 
music to which his words were set a consideration 
which never could or would have been given to the 
words themselves. He, however, in all sincerity 
believed himself to be a poet, and the success secured 
for his cheap verses by the agency of another art he 
attributed to their own inherent excellence. The 
surprising thing is that others were found at that time 
to take the same view. Much more deserving of 
respect was the name of Bryan Waller Procter, better 
known as Barry Cornwall. He had written some fine 
lyrics ; but he was too well aware of his own limitations 
to entertain for a moment any thought of his fitness 



572 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

for the post. Eichard Monckton Milnes and Robert 
Browning are said by later writers to have been 
suggested also. This may very likely have been the 
case ; though no mention of them has fallen under my 
own observation in the necessarily limited consultation 
of the periodical literature of the time. 

No attention whatever was paid to these various 
proposals by the authorities in whom the power of 
appointment existed. The post was offered in the 
first place to Rogers. On the eighth of May a letter 
was written to him by Prince Albert, acting in behalf 
of the Queen, tendering him the position.^ One gets 
the impression that this action seems to have been 
taken not as a tribute to his poetic eminence, but 
rather as a recognition of his merit in having lived 
so long. One of the most perplexing questions with 
which the modern student of literature has to, deal is 
the vogue which Rogers early attained as a poet and 
more or less retained during the whole of his long life. 
His ' Pleasures of Memory, ' upon which his reputation 
mainly rests, is one of the pleasures in which readers 
of to-day rarely indulge. The acquisition of its 
original repute is not so hard to understand. It came 
out in the interval between the decadence of the 
eighteenth-century poetical school and the great out- 
burst of song which marked the very close of the 
eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nine- 
teenth. The work originally appeared in 1792. Before 
the seventh year after its publication had been 
reached, it had gone through six editions. It was 

1 p. W. Clayden 's ' Eogers and his Contemporaries, ' Vol. II, p. 352. 



POET LAUREATE 573 

reprinted again and again during the first half of the 
nineteenth century. The succeeding productions of 
Eogers met with a respectable degree of favor. None 
of them, however, rivalled in popularity 'The Pleas- 
ures of Memory.' But the glamour of his early 
achievement still continued to hang about the poet and 
gave a sort of fictitious repute to whatever he later 
published. Though his best work was far surpassed 
by many of his contemporaries, the general voice 
nevertheless accorded him a high position in the ranks 
of the poetical fraternity. Nor was the lofty opinion 
entertained of him the opinion of men intellectually 
inferior. As late as 1830, Macaulay could not refrain 
from expressing his surprise at the estimation in 
which Rogers was held, agreeable enough as he consid- 
ered his writings to be. "That such men," he wrote, 
"as Lord Granville, Lord Holland, Hobhouse, Lord 
Byron, and others of high rank in intellect, should 
place Rogers, as they do, above Southey, Moore and 
even Scott himself, is what I can not conceive. But 
this comes of being in the highest society of London. 
What Lady Jane Granville called the Patronage of 
Fashion can do as much for a middling poet as for a 
plain girl like Miss Arabella Falconer."^ 

There were other causes, however, which contributed 
to the maintenance of the reputation of Rogers. Some 
of the good opinion entertained of him was due to the 
generosity displayed by him towards his less fortunate 
literary brothers. His hand and tongue were always 

1 Macaulay 's 'Life and Letters,' Vol. I, p. 198, Letter of June 3, 
1831. 



574 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

at war. He had a habit of saying about contemporary 
men of letters sharp and at times bitter things. He 
rarely failed to comment upon their defects of nature 
or of intellect. But in the times of their distress and 
pecuniary trouble he was fairly sure to come to their 
relief. His aid too was always given unostentatiously 
and as a general rule secretly. Tested by his utter- 
ances he would often appear one of the most unamiable 
not to say malicious of men. Measured by his deeds 
he was one of the kindest and most generous. This 
naturally led many of his literary friends to take a 
peculiarly favorable view of what he had accomplished. 
Other circumstances there were which contributed to 
this result besides the reason suggested by Macaulay. 
At Rogers's house were to be met the men most 
brilliant in the literary and intellectual world. It was 
an honor for any young aspirant for distinction in 
letters to be invited to sit at his table. It was not for 
the guest at such a gathering to indulge in deprecia- 
tory, still less sarcastic, comments upon the poetry of 
his host. Much rather was he disposed to accord him 
all the praise his conscience would permit him to utter. 
It was indeed inevitable that the man of letters just 
setting forth upon his career should be grateful for 
the privilege of sitting down at a table where he was 
surrounded on every side by those who had already 
attained reputation. It was equally inevitable that 
he should contribute to any periodical with which he 
chanced to be connected a more or less flattering 
opinion of the poet and his work. He would certainly 



POET LAUREATE 575 

have no disposition to expose faults and imperfections 
even if he saw them plainly. 

The laureateship indeed seemed almost a perquisite 
of the literary position to which Eogers had now 
attained. That it should be offered him partook 
almost of the nature of necessity. No one seems any- 
where to have entered an objection. It is a tribute 
to his own good sense that he declined it. Even in 
the most extreme self-estimate he took of himself, the 
contrast between his own work and that of Words- 
worth must have been apparent. What he saw so well, 
he knew that others would fancy that they could see 
better. The position afforded tempting opportunities 
for sarcasm and detraction. He could feel assured 
that there were those who would only be too glad to 
avail themselves of them. Furthermore, he was now 
eighty-seven years old. This gave him a justifiable 
reason for declining an honor to which in his secret 
heart he must have felt himself in no wise entitled. 
Accordingly he pleaded the excuse of age. It seems 
to have been willingly accepted. By the offer itself 
due respect had been paid to the oldest survivor of 
the Georgian era. The filling of the office remained 
in consequence in abeyance and the claims of the 
various candidates for the position continued to be 
warmly pressed, and their qualifications as warmly 
discussed. 

Before the place had been offered to Rogers and 
declined, there were several other poets, as has been 
said, who had been suggested as worthy to hold the 
office. Of some the claims were earnestly pushed either 



576 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

by themselves or by their friends. One of these men 
was Leigh Hunt. He had a very respectable band of 
supporters, nor did he himself pretend to disguise his 
desire for the honor. In the early part of June, 1850, 
appeared his autobiography. The discussion of the 
one who was to be or ought to be the future poet 
laureate was then going on vigorously in the press. 
Towards the conclusion of the work. Hunt took up 
the consideration of his own claims to the position 
and hinted unmistakably that he would not be averse 
to accepting it, were it offered. He considered dis- 
passionately the arguments that could be brought in 
his favor and those that might militate against the 
bestowal upon him of an office of that character. On 
the one hand, he had been in the past a sort of volunteer 
laureate. He had celebrated in verse her Majesty's 
birthday and also the birthdays of the royal children. 
To his admiration for the Queen and to the natural 
loyalty he felt for a female sovereign were to be 
attributed those effusions of gratitude which had been 
thought by some to give him a claim to the post. Any 
such view he disavowed, for, as he observed, gratitude 
makes no claim. 

On the other hand, conditions might be required 
which it was impossible for him to meet. '*! do not 
mean with regard to poetical qualifications, ' ' he said ; 
**for without entering into comparison of myself with 
others, which neither my modesty nor my pride will 
allow, it would be an affectation and a falsehood in 
me to pretend that I do not hold myself to possess 
them. I venture even to think, and this too, without 



POET LAUREATE 577 

any disparagement to court taste, that I should make 
a better court poet than some who are superior to me 
in respects not courtly. And sure I am, that in one 
respect I should make a very rare poet, as far as the 
world has hitherto seen; for I should write from the 
heart. I have done so already." Then he went on to 
discuss the political and religious objections which 
might be brought against conferring the ofiQce upon a 
man holding the opinions he did. His conclusion was 
that if these opinions had nothing to do with the post, 
he should rejoice to be thought worthy of it. It is 
manifest indeed from his remarks that Hunt con- 
sidered himself the poetical equal of any person who 
had been named for the position. This desire for it 
too must have been expressed elsewhere than in this 
autobiography. There is a reference to the fact in 
a letter from Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford. It was 
written from Florence and dated the fifteenth of June. 
By that time the work containing the sentiments just 
quoted could hardly have reached Italy. **I think," 
Mrs. Browning expressed herself, ' ' Leigh Hunt should 
have the Laureateship. He has condescended to wish 
for it, and he has 'worn his singing clothes' longer 
than most of his contemporaries, deserving the price 
of long as well as noble service. ' '^ 

Not so, however, thought many others. Among 
those who took a very conspicuous part in the discus- 
sion of the appointment was Henry Fothergill Chorley. 
He was at that time musical editor of 'The Athenaeum' 
and was further responsible for many of its criticisms 

1 ' Letters of Mrs. Browning, ' Vol. I, p. 452. 



578 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of books. He was in many ways a man of fair, though 
of far from commanding ability. He had led a some- 
what checkered literary career. He had written novels 
which had not succeeded, he had written plays which 
had not succeeded, he had written poetry which had 
not succeeded. Accordingly he may be said to have 
answered fully to that ancient ill-natured description 
of the reviewing fraternity which Disraeli was the last 
to formulate in a condensed form, that a critic is one 
who has failed in literature and art. In regard to this 
particular matter under discussion, Chorley had one 
set idea in his mind. A woman was on the throne. 
If the laureateship was to be retained, the proper 
person to fill it was a woman, provided one sufficiently 
worthy were found. Such a one did exist. She was 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her he had had in his 
eye from the outset. In the number of ' The Athenaeum' 
for June 1, he announced that as yet there had been 
no decision as to the holder of the post. Now for the 
first time he indicated his own choice in unmistakable 
terms. 

Chorley was not the only one who took the position 
that since the throne was occupied by a woman, it was 
peculiarly fitting that the laureateship should be held 
by a woman. There was a widespread feeling that 
such action would be a graceful tribute to the Queen 
herself. Unfortunately for its advocates, she herself 
manifestly did not share in the sentiment. More than 
one female name was mentioned as worthy to fill the 
post. A reviewer, for instance, while urging in an 
influential periodical that the office should not be given 



POET LAUREATE 579 

up, expressed a preference for the selection of a 
particular woman as its holder. "Had we a voice on 
the subject," he wrote, "we should wish that, in 
memory of the illustrious dead, and in the feeling of 
gratitude to one of the most graceful writers living, 
the laurel were bestowed on the wife of Southey, as 
the writer whom we have all known and all admired 
as Caroline Bowles."^ But such nominations for the 
post were merely expressions of individual preference. 
As at this time Mrs. Browning stood at the head of 
all the poetesses of her country in popular estimation, 
her name was the one almost invariably mentioned, 
when a woman was mentioned as the proper one to 
hold the position. "In the reign of a youthful queen," 
wrote Chorley, "if there be among her subjects one 
of her own sex whom the laurel will fit, its grant to a 
female would be at once an honourable testimonial to 
the individual, a fitting recognition of the remarkable 
place which the women of England have taken in the 
literature of the day, and a graceful compliment to the 
Sovereign herself. It happens to fall in well with this 
view of the case that there is no li\dng poet of either 
sex who can prefer a higher claim than Mrs. Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning." It is clear that the Queen, if 
she thought of the matter at all, was not in the least 
impressed by the desirability of appointing a woman 
to the office because she herself was a woman. She 
could not help being aware that so far as any glory 
would redound to her reign from the selection, it would 
come from the genius and not the sex of the holder. 

1 'North British Eeview,' November, 1850, Vol. XIV, p. 167. 



580 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

It is a singular illustration of the state of contem- 
porary opinion that while Mrs. Browning's name was 
prominently mentioned for the post of laureate, that 
of her husband seems hardly to have been thought of, 
though during the fifth decade of the century he had 
published his series of 'Bells and Pomegranates' con- 
taining some of his finest work. If he was mentioned 
at all, it could hardly have been in any quarter which 
carried weight with the public. Mrs. Browning was 
doubtless grateful to Chorley for his championship of 
her claims, though at heart she was probably amused 
by it. She manifestly never entertained the slightest 
expectation of being named for the post ; for her good 
sense never failed her, save in continuing to retain 
affection for her despicable brute of a father. Never- 
theless her advocate persisted in vigorously urging 
her selection. But after the declination by Rogers, 
Leigh Hunt and Tennyson were the two poets who 
were the most prominent as candidates in the eyes of 
the general public. In regard to them Chorley assumed 
an almost aggressive attitude. In a way which now 
seems amusing, but must then have seemed presump- 
tuous, he solemnly warned off both of them from 
aspiring to the position. It did not please him at all 
that Leigh Hunt should let it be known that he would 
be gratified to receive the appointment. No charge of 
that sort indeed could be brought against Tennyson. 
Neither directly nor indirectly did he make the 
slightest effort to push his pretensions, nor did he 
indicate in any way his desire for the office. 

Still, Tennyson's poetical position had now become 



POET LAUREATE 581 

so assured that it was inevitable that his claims should 
come up for consideration. As we have seen, his name 
had been proposed for the post on the death of Southey 
in 1843. That it should then have been suggested at 
all was evidence of the growth of his reputation; for 
any mention of him as a candidate for the position 
would have been hardly possible before the publication 
of the volumes of 1842. Even at that late day enough 
of the old prejudice against Wordsworth had still 
survived to provoke dissent at his selection, though 
it was in general little audible. But if objection could 
be raised against the one man who had come to be 
generally reckoned the first of living English poets, 
we need not be told what an outbreak of protest there 
would have been had the choice then fallen upon him 
who in the eyes of many was little more than the chief 
of a poetic school, and furthermore of a school for 
which they had no admiration, even if they did not 
entertain for it distinct aversion. But by the year 
1850, the sentiments of the cultivated public had under- 
gone a complete revolution. Tennyson had now come 
to stand in its eyes as the recognized head of the poets 
of his own generation. There was in consequence a 
widespread sentiment that if the post were to be 
conferred upon the ground of desert, he was the one 
upon whom the choice should fall. 

But such were far from being Chorley's sentiments. 
In the columns of the weekly literary paper with which 
he was connected he gave again and again expression 
of his hostility towards any action of this sort. A few 
days after Wordsworth's death he observed that he 



582 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

had been given to understand that the laureateship 
was likely to fall to the lot of Tennyson. Against any 
such action he protested earnestly. He declared he 
could not believe the report to be true. Tennyson's 
poetical claims had been already rewarded with a 
pension of three hundred pounds a year. To give him 
further one of the few pecuniary provisions set apart 
for men of letters would be a great wrong inflicted 
upon his brethren and ''not justified by the pre- 
eminence of his desert."^ It is manifest from the 
critic's subsequent utterances that he was not thinking 
so much of the poet's literary brothers as of his 
literary sisters. In the following week he corrected 
his mistake as to the amount of the poet's pension; 
but he insisted that this slip left entirely unaffected 
the objection to what he called the accumulation of 
literary benefices in a single person.^ It is evident 
from Chorley's various utterances that in his opinion 
offices of this sort should be divided round. The 
eminence of the poet, due to the worthiness of his 
work, should not be the main consideration in granting 
this particular prize from the public treasury. ' ' There 
is more than one worthy recipient of the laurel," he 
remarked, — ' ' and more than one, unhappily, the state 
of whose fortunes makes it needful that the leaves 
should be gilded." According to this view, the 
laureateship was not to be offered to him most fitted 
by his genius to hold it, but to be treated as one of the 



L ' Athenseum, ' April 27, p. 451. 
2 Hid., May 4, p. 477. 



POET LAUREATE 583 

offices to be distributed among the deserving who had 
the additional recommendation of being poor. 

This view led him later to inveigh more than once 
against the selection of Leigh Hunt. He became 
excited when later the rumor reached his ears that 
this particular author was to receive the laurel. 
Accordingly he now proceeded to speak much more 
strongly than before. He observed that many of his 
contemporaries had urged this appointment. "We 
hope," he said, ''no such injustice, in all senses of the 
word, will be committed." The references he made 
to his candidacy were far from complimentary. His 
views as to Hunt's poetical position varied widely 
from those entertained by Hunt himself. If ability 
in that particular were to be regarded as the only 
consideration, his claims were far below those of 
Tennyson. If the latter was ruled out by the fact of 
his having received a pension, much more would the 
former, who, in addition to his having received one, 
was distinctly inferior as a poet to his contemporary. 
To give the laureateship to him would be to prostitute 
the office "and to do great wrong to yet unpensioned 
genius which may need the profit that is legitimately 
its due." Once more he returned to the advocacy of 
the claims of the poetess whom he had already desig- 
nated as the one upon whom the choice ought to fall. 
By conferring the position on Mrs. Browning, a grace- 
ful compliment would be paid to the youthful sovereign 
in thus recognizing the remarkable literary place taken 
by women in her reign. Then followed the only 
instance which has come under my observation — doubt- 



584 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

less there were others — of the fact that Browning 
himself was looked upon as a poet by any one of those 
who took part in the discussion. * ' This appropriation 
of the laurel, ' ' Chorley remarked, * ' has another argu- 
ment in its favour : — it would in a manner recompense 
two poets by a single act. ' '^ 

But while controversy on the subject was still going 
on, *In Memoriam' was published. Tennyson's pros- 
pects for the gift of the laurel had been bright before, 
so far as that depended on the favor of the public. 
Still they could hardly be called certain. The appear- 
ance, however, of this work changed at once the whole 
situation. It made his superiority to any possible 
aspirant so manifest that the claims of all others were 
cast utterly in the shade by comparison with those 
of the poet, who, by this last poem had established 
himself firmly in the regard of the English-speaking 
people everywhere. With the passing of every week, 
the recognition of his pre-eminence became more 
significantly notable and noticeable. In the eyes of 
the cultivated classes he was the one marked out to be 
the coming wearer of the laurel. The public voice was 
heeded by the court. In truth, it was doubtless the 
same as its own voice. On the third of October, a 
letter of inquiry about Tennyson was addressed by 
Lord John Russell to Rogers. Its purport was not 
to ask about Tennyson's poetical fitness, but to gain 
some knowledge of his personal character. The prime 
minister was in this instance acting as the fnouthpiece 
of the Queen. He expressly said that her Majesty 

1 ' Athenaeum, ' June 22, p. 662. 



POET LAUREATE 585 

was inclined to bestow the office on Mr. Tennyson/ 
According to the statement made in the authorized life 
of the poet, his selection for the post was chiefly due 
to the admiration of Prince Albert for ' In Memoriam. ' 
How the result was actually reached — whether the 
Queen influenced the Prince Consort or the Prince 
Consort influenced the Queen, or whether both came 
independently to the same conclusion — may never be 
definitely known. What is certain is, that the opinion 
of the two highest persons in the state accorded with 
that of the public. 

Tennyson himself had not made the slightest effort, 
either by word or act, to secure the position or even 
to indicate the least desire for it. Still he could hardly 
have been ignorant that his name had been very 
frequently mentioned in connection with the post. A. 
singular story is told that the night before he received 
the notice of the intended appointment — which was 
that of November 4 — he dreamt that Prince Albert 
came and kissed him on the cheek and that his comment 
to himself on the act was ''Very kind but very 
German."^ On the following morning the official 
notice reached him from Windsor Castle that the 
position had been offered to him as a mark of her 
Majesty's appreciation of his literary distinction, and 
as an indication of her desire that the name of the poet 
appointed should adorn the office. The disbeliever in 
divination by dreams may well believe that rumor at 
least of the Prince's desire that the post should be 

1 p. W. Clayden 's * Eogers and his Contemporaries, ' Vol. II, p. 354. 
2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 335. 



586 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

conferred upon him had somehow come to the ears 
of the poet. Tennyson took a day to consider the offer, 
and on his announcement of his acceptance the appoint- 
ment was made on the nineteenth of November. 

There is no doubt that there was a substantial 
agreement among the members of the cultivated 
classes that the choice was not only the best but the 
only appropriate one that could have been made. 
Naturally there was dissatisfaction on the part of 
some. There was ignorance to be encountered, there 
was envy, there was jealousy. All this was inevitable. 
But the dissatisfied were so comparatively few in 
number and as a general rule so insignificant in 
consideration that their dissent tended rather to excite 
pity for their literary taste than indignation at their 
attitude. Among the dissatisfied, we are told, were 
some of the relatives of the dead laureate. They 
waxed exceedingly indignant at the choice made of 
his successor, though it is hard to see that it was any 
concern of theirs. They forgot, too, how unfavorably 
the appointment of Wordsworth himself had been 
looked on in various quarters. But there is no question 
that the selection of Tennyson met general approval 
and in particular the approval of what may be called 
Young England. 

But one person there was who was very far from 
being satisfied. Nor could he be consoled. This man 
was Chorley. He always had taken himself seriously; 
and it was hard for him to conceal the indignation he 
felt that the one he had fixed upon as the recipient 
of the laurel had not been appointed — had apparently 



POET LAUREATE 587 

not even been considered. He gave at once a most 
amusing exhibition of tlie wrath he felt for the little 
deference which had been paid to his views, and 
incidentally revealed the high importance he attached 
to his own position as a critic, accompanied though 
it was with a not unfrequent manifestation of critical 
incompetence. ^'The office of Laureate," he wrote, 
*' after having been allowed to remain vacant so long, 
has been finally filled up according to that spirit of 
caprice which presides ordinarily over Lord John 
Russell's bestowal of the national gifts. The laurel 
has been given to Mr. Tennyson. We have already 
said, by anticipation, that, against this appropriation 
as regards Mr. Tennyson's fitness to wear it we have 
not a word to say. Poetically speaking, it has been 
often worse bestowed : — and, in fact, Mr. Tennyson is 
expressly one of those legitimately designated for the 
honour. But so long as there are others on whose 
brows it would have been as fitly placed — and so long 
as the nation has few literary crowns to give away, — 
we hold that the multiplication of its benefices to a 
single subject is in so far an abuse of the patronage 
which the Minister exercises in the name of the 
country. Mr. Tennyson has already had his unques- 
tionably high title recognized in the form of a pension ; 
and there are others the laurel on whose forehead 
might as fitly have received the Court stamp, — which 
happens to have a money value as all its worth. ' ' 

Poor Lord John Russell, the prime minister, had in 
all probability as little directly to do with the selection 
of the poet laureate as Chorley himself. But when 



588 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

we consider the names of those who have filled the 
post, it is hard to refrain from paying a tribute of 
deference to the ignorance or impudence of the critic — 
it is impossible to tell which was the predominating 
influence — in his remark that poetically speaking the 
office had been worse bestowed. Chorley returned to 
his idea that the offices in the gift of the Crown should 
be doled out, not so much according to the exceeding 
merit of the recipients as to their real or imagined 
need of money. This he brought out again in his final 
lamentation over the failure to bestow the laurel upon 
Mrs. Browning. *'In particular," he said further, 
''the opportunity has been lost of doing an act which, 
while it would have been equally one of justice with 
any other appropriation of the office that could be 
named, would, as we have before pointed out, have 
had a peculiar grace and significance in the reign of 
a youthful Queen, — over a people, so striking a portion 
of whose literary force is for the moment constituted 
by women. This, however, we presume, was too 
chivalrous a view of the subject for the Minister, — 
who has a trick of looking for his favourites down the 
back stairs."^ Exactly what meaning he meant to 
convey by the phrase ''looking down the back stairs" 
is not clear to the modern reader. The most intent 
gaze in that direction would not have revealed the 
presence of Tennyson, who had held himself absolutely 
aloof from the slightest effort to press his claim for 
the position. 

1' Athenaeum,' November 23, 1850, p. 1218. 



CHAPTER XXII 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 

The year 1850 was a peculiarly eventful one in 
Tennyson's life. In the early half of it he was 
married ; in the latter half he was made poet laureate. 
But as regards the growth of his reputation and his 
acceptance by the world of readers, a still more 
important event had occurred. This was the publi- 
cation of 'In Memoriam. ' About two weeks before 
his marriage, appeared this collection of poems. It 
gave its author at once a place in the regard of his 
countrymen from which the most malignant assaults 
of his depredators have never succeeded in dislodging 
him. 

Before entering upon an account of 'In Memoriam,' 
it is desirable to give in detail certain facts — many of 
which are well known, but some of which have never 
been recorded — in the life of the man who was 
its subject. Arthur Henry Hallam was the eldest 
son of the historian, Henry Hallam. He was born 
February 1, 1811. His preliminary education was at 
Eton, which he entered in 1822 and left in 1827. There 
he made the acquaintance of Gladstone. The two 
became the closest of friends and companions. Boys 
at that school regularly breakfasted alone in their 
rooms; these two usually took that meal together, 



590 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

either in the apartments of the one or of the other. 
They walked together, they talked together. They 
reached indeed what may be called the height of school- 
boy friendship by corresponding in vacation. The 
intimacy is the more remarkable, because the future 
statesman was then a conservative of the conserva- 
tives, while the son of the Whig historian was 
naturally a liberal — though neither of these desig- 
nations had become at that time a part of political 
nomenclature. They discussed questions of church 
and state, in which naturally their opinions conflicted. 
In his journal of May 14, 1826, Gladstone records 
"Stiff arguments with Hallam, as usual on Sundays, 
about articles, creeds, etc." In his later years the 
statesman came to believe that his friend was right 
in his views and that he himself was wrong. Still, at 
the time itself their religious and political differences 
did not stand in the slightest in the way of their 
thorough comradeship. In truth, they probably had 
the effect of rendering it still closer. 

According to Gladstone 's testimony, Hallam at Eton 
was "the best scholar (in any but the very narrowest 
sense) of the whole school with its five hundred 
pupils. ' ' After leaving it he accompanied his parents 
on a tour to the Continent. There he spent a year. 
Everything was favorable to proficiency in the sub- 
jects, whatever they were, on which he had set his 
heart. Those were not as now the days when rapid 
locomotion left comparatively little opportunity for 
gaining knowledge at first hand. Men travelled slowly, 
they observed closely. Instead of gleaning information 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 591 

from guide-books, which then had no existence, they 
had to resort to the use of their own eyes and ears. 
They naturally did not cover as much ground as now ; 
but they saw much more of the fewer things they saw 
and retained the memory of them more vividly. Eight 
months of the year Hallam spent in Italy. To visit 
that country still continued to be to most Englishmen 
the summit of man's travelling ambition. During his 
stay in it, he devoted himself with peculiar ardor to 
the study of its language and literature. In the 
tongue itself he made such proficiency that certain 
sonnets he wrote in it were, after careful reading and 
re-reading, pronounced by Sir Anthony Panizzi as 
*'much superior not only to what foreigners have 
written, but what I thought possible for them to 
produce in Italian." 

Hallam 's father was a graduate of Oxford, but for 
some reason he preferred to send his son to Cambridge. 
This course was possibly taken under the belief that 
the severe mathematical training there carried on 
would furnish a better discipline for a mind which 
apparently tended in the elder Hallam 's opinion too 
much to obscure speculative theories. This indeed he 
may be thought to imply in the memoir he wrote of his 
son. In it he deplored Arthur's indifference to mathe- 
matical studies. ^'A little more practice in the strict 
logic of geometry," he wrote, ''a little more famil- 
iarity with the physical laws of the universe, and the 
phenomena to which they relate, would possibly have 
repressed the tendency to vague and mystical specu- 
lations which he was too fond of indulging." At the 



592 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

same time, while this belief may have been a factor 
in determining his choice, it could hardly have been 
the determining factor; for it was to this same insti- 
tution he sent his second son, Henry Fitzmaurice. 
Gladstone thought the selection of Cambridge a mis- 
take. According to him Arthur Hallam would have 
found at Oxford studies in which he was pre-eminently 
fitted to excel, while in those which were essential to 
success in the sister university he had no interest, and 
to some of them he had distinct aversion. At Cam- 
bridge no undergraduate was then allowed to compete 
for the principal honors of classical study, unless he 
had attained a certain proficiency in mathematics. 
No such impediment existed at Oxford. There, accord- 
ingly, his friend would, in Gladstone's opinion, have 
attained the highest rank. This may be true. Still 
it has to be remembered that had Hallam gone to 
Oxford, he would not have met with Tennyson. The 
world in consequence would have lost not only one of 
its greatest elegiac poems, but the memory of the man 
himself would have passed away almost entirely, 
instead of being enshrined, to use Gladstone's own 
words, in ''the noblest monument (not excepting 
Lycidas) that ever was erected by one human being 
to another." 

One gets the impression, indeed, that Hallam himself 
would have preferred to accompany his friend to 
Oxford, and that the choice of Cambridge was due 
entirely to his father's wish and not at all to his own. 
The existence of this state of mind is suggested at 
least in a letter he wrote to Gladstone after his return 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 593 

from the Continent. ''I have been, I believe, some- 
what changed," he then said, ''since I last saw you. 
I have snatched rather eagerly a draught from the cup 
of life, with its strange mingling of sweet and bitter. 
All this should rather have come after my three years 
of college than before ; but nothing can cancel it now, 
and I must on in the path that has been chalked out 
for me. I have no aversion to study, I trust, quite the 
contrary; though my ideas of the essential do not 
precisely square with those of the worshipful dons of 
Cambridge." These words seem to imply that he was 
not disposed to take kindly to the studies which in that 
institution were necessary to scholastic success. If so, 
his anticipations were realized. To many men of 
literary and philosophic tastes mathematics is a sub- 
ject peculiarly repugnant. Such it assuredly was to 
Arthur Hallam. At times, indeed, he fell into fits of 
profound mathematical despondency. On one occasion 
while there, he wrote to Gladstone about the agony he 
had in dealing with trigonometry. If so comparatively 
elementary a subject as trigonometry could make him 
gasp, he would certainly have found insuperable 
difficulty in breathing at all the rarefied air of higher 
mathematics. As a consequence of the dislike he 
entertained for the studies which led to honors at 
Cambridge, he took no high rank in scholarship. But 
one far more than counterbalancing advantage fell to 
his lot. It was in October, 1828, that he came up to 
the university, where he entered Trinity. This was 
a few months later than Tennyson's arrival at the 
same college. Between him and the poet speedily 



594 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

sprang up a peculiarly ardent friendship, though, 
as in the case of Gladstone, he was nearly two years 
younger. His precociousness, however, and his un- 
usual attainments, invariably put him on a level with 
men older than himself. 

After his graduation in January, 1832, Arthur 
Hallam took up the study of law. This was not because 
of any fondness for it on his own part but at the wish 
of his father. It was not a study which appealed to 
one possessed of his literary and philosophical tastes ; 
but to it he applied himself dutifully. His health, 
however, had never been robust. The weakness of his 
constitution had always prevented him from taking 
part in the games in which his schoolfellows indulged. 
More than once indeed appeared ominous indications 
of the fate ultimately to overtake him, which awak- 
ened the anxiety of his friends; though probably no 
one of them anticipated that the end would come as 
early as it did. In later life, Gladstone observed that 
in his Eton days marks of his coming doom could be 
traced, after a period of exertion, in **a delicate but 
deep rosy flush upon his cheeks, reaching to his eyes." 
It is fairly certain that his health was not benefited by 
this compulsory attention to a study for which he did 
not care. In April, 1833, he was stricken down by a 
severe attack of influenza which confined him to his 
bed for several weeks and from the effects of which, 
it is probable, he never fully recovered. 

Later in this same year he travelled with his father 
on the Continent. On the fifteenth of September while 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 595 

at Vienna — a city which Tennyson could never be 
induced to visit — he passed away without warning. 
The father returned from his daily walk to find Arthur, 
who had been for some days indisposed, lying, as he 
thought, asleep on his couch. For an hour he sat 
reading, until the singular stillness attracted his 
attention. He went to look at his son and to his 
inexpressible grief and horror he found him not asleep 
but dead. The end could not have been at best a long 
time deferred. Owing doubtless to some inherited 
taint of blood, probably on the mother's side, the 
historian was fated to have die before him with one 
exception all of a numerous family of children. With 
a suddenness equal to that of the death of the , son, 
passed away his wife and his eldest daughter Ellen; 
nor was the illness of his second son protracted. The 
medical examination in Arthur Hallam's case showed 
that the death could not have been delayed for many 
years, though under favoring conditions life might 
perhaps have been somewhat prolonged. '* Those 
whose eyes must long be dim with tears," wrote the 
afflicted father, **and whose hopes on this side the 
tomb are broken down forever, may cling, as well as 
they can, to the poor consolation of believing, that 
a few more years would, in the usual chances of 
humanity, have severed the frail union of his graceful 
and manly form with the pure spirit that it embodied. ' ' 
Arthur Hallam's body was taken to Trieste and 
from there transported by sea to England. On the 
third of January, 1834, he was buried in the manor 



596 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

aisle^ of the Clevedon cliurch in Somersetshire about 
a mile to the south of the village of Clevedon. The 
church stands on a hill overlooking the water where 
the Severn empties into the Bristol Channel. In the 
middle of this same year the father printed for private 
distribution a limited number of copies of a book of 
four hundred pages entitled ^Remains of A. H. H.' 
This volume consisted of selections both of poems and 
prose pieces. Most of them had been printed sepa- 
rately before; but there were a few pieces which had 
never previously seen the light. The collection was 
preceded by a brief account of the son's life and 
character. To it were appended testimonials from 
three of his associates in school and college. The 
names of these w^ere not given but they are well known. 
The first came from his Cambridge friend, Brookfield, 
the two others from his Eton schoolmates. One of 
these was Francis Hastings Doyle. The final tribute 
came from Gladstone. After the death of the elder 
Hallam this volume was given to the public in a new 
edition in 1863. In that it was accompanied by a 
memoir of the younger son, Henry Fitzmaurice, who 
died at Siena in October, 1850. 

The tie between Hallam and Tennyson had become 
peculiarly close during their Cambridge life. It was 
made even closer from the time when the former 
visited the latter at his Somersby home in 1829. There 
he met the poet's sister Emily. Between the two 

1 In the memoir of his son, the father spoke of his being buried in 
' * the chancel ' ' ; and this Tennyson followed in what was originally the 
sixty-fifth, now the sixty-seventh, section of 'In Memoriam. ' When he 
came to know the truth, he substituted "the dark church." 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 597 

sprang up an attachment which in a short period 
deepened into intense love on both sides. Early in 
1831 they had pledged themselves to each other. They 
were at the time little more than boy and girl. Hallam 
was then of the age of twenty and Emily Tennyson 
was about two thirds of a year younger. But on the 
part of both it was something more than the fancy 
of the moment which comes and goes with the passing 
of a few careless months. Hostility to the match on 
the part of the Tennysons there could well be none. 
Hallam 's position in life, besides the intimate friend- 
ship which existed between him and the brother of the 
woman he loved, precluded the possibility of any 
objection coming from that quarter to his marrying 
the sister. It was from the Hallams, if from any one, 
that opposition to the union was to be expected. In 
particular, the consent of the father, upon whom the 
son was dependent, was imperatively needed. 

One cannot well resist the impression that this 
attachment of the eldest son to Emily Tennyson was 
looked upon with none too favorable eyes by the 
Hallam family. At least such seems to have been the 
case at the outset. It was certainly not unnatural that 
the feeling should exist. Arthur Hallam had not yet 
attained his majority. It was pretty early in life for 
one little more than a mere boy to mortgage his future 
unreservedly. He was too young to have seen much 
of society or the world. Wider experience might 
change, when it was too late, his judgment both of 
persons and things. To join himself at this early 
period with any one whatever in a union not to be 



598 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

dissolved, might justly seem an act of imprudence, to 
call it by the least objectionable phrase. There were 
other reasons, too, which might tend to make the 
prospect of such a marriage distasteful to the family. 
Arthur Hallam was their pride and hope. With his 
abilities, with his prospects in life as well as with the 
position and reputation of his father, he might reason- 
ably look forward to contract what would be a brilliant 
alliance. From a purely worldly point of view there 
was assuredly nothing to excite enthusiasm in the 
marriage of the son to the daughter of a country 
clergyman who had never been possessed of any but 
comparatively limited means, and was himself soon 
after dead. The bride would be practically penniless. 
Of her and indeed of the family to which she belonged 
the Hallams knew little or nothing save what the son 
chose to tell; and long-continued observation has 
demonstrated that the opinion of an experienced man, 
to saj nothing of that of an inexperienced boy, about 
the qualities and perfections of the woman with whom 
he has fallen in love is hardly to be received with the 
trusting faith which is accorded to the words of a 
divine revelation. 

Still, the father did not place himself in open 
opposition to the match. He simply pleaded for delay. 
He exacted a promise from his son that he should not 
see the woman of his choice until after a year had 
elapsed. At the end of that time Arthur Hallam would 
have attained his majority. In turn the father 
promised that if the two lovers then remained in the 
same state of mind, no objection should be raised to 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 599 

their entering into a formal engagement. Further- 
more, while not permitted to see each other during the 
interval, they were not debarred from corresponding. 
All these precautions against hasty action, which might 
later be sorely repented, were fair and just enough. 
None the less the prohibition of actual meeting was 
one hardly to be accepted by the lovers with thankful- 
ness. In writing to Emily Tennyson in July, 1831, 
Hallam discussed the possibility of her being enabled 
to go to Cheltenham for the sake of her health. 
''Alas," he added, ''change of place will bring you no 
nearer to me. Whatever place you make a Paradise of 
by dwelling there, for me the flaming brand waves 
round it and limits me to the wilderness of earth." 
Still the long months of weary waiting made no change 
in the feeling of the lovers. When the time was up, 
when Arthur Hallam had reached the age of twenty- 
one, he hastened at the earliest moment possible to 
Somersby. That place he reached late in the month 
of February, 1832. He left it after a few weeks' stay 
as the accepted lover of Emily Tennyson. 

But the troubles of the two were far from being 
over. Neither one possessed the means which would 
justify their entering upon a married life. Arthur 
Hallam was dependent upon his father. At his 
father's wish he had taken up the study of law. To 
him it was eminently distasteful. In his eyes it was, 
what he himself called it, the driest of all branches 
of learning. Still, he applied himself to it faithfully. 
The one thing above all which kept up his courage in 
what he termed his slavery was the expectation that 



I 



600 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

through its agency he might realize the possibility 
of hastening his union with the woman he loved. This 
indeed he avowed to her more than once. ''It is the 
hope of securing our happiness, ' ' he wrote to her from 
Croydon in September, 1832, ''that I devote myself 
to a life so uncongenial to me." In a short time he 
was to resume his dreary task- work in London. "It 
would not do," he said in a later letter, "for me to 
play truant just at the beginning of my slavery ; when 
I shall have earned my task-master's favour by my 
diligence, I may be let out of Algiers for a while." 
More than once he deplored the necessity which kept 
them so much apart. The long separation, varied 
though it was by frequent letters and occasional meet- 
ings, weighed heavily upon his spirits and could not 
have been favorable to his health. He chafed con- 
stantly against the bars which delayed their union. 
"Oh, it is a weary, weary time," he wrote to his 
betrothed in April, 1833, — '^ three years now since I 
have felt that you were my only hope in life — more 
than two since we plighted to each other the word of 
promise. It is indeed a weary time. In gaiety and in 
gloom, alone and in crowds, the one thought never 
ceases to cling to my heart, and by showing me the 
possibility of happiness makes me feel more keenly the 
reality of misery." 

It was not till some time after the son's death that 
the elder Hallam saw the woman who was to have 
been that son's bride. In fact, for more than a year 
after the engagement had taken place, there had been 
no communication between the two families. Conse- 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 601 

quently the father knew really nothing of her who was 
his son's choice, nor of any of her relatives save her 
brother Alfred; and of him he could have then seen 
but little. The situation was caused mainly by distance 
of space which in those days could render the possi- 
bility of acquaintance difficult, and that of intimacy 
almost out of the question. It was not till towards the 
tragic close that this barrier was at all removed. In 
the spring of 1833 a slight acquaintance sprang up. 
Tennyson then visited London in company with his 
sister Mary. There in April the two met the family 
between which and their own an alliance was in 
contemplation. The first meeting was not looked 
forward to with any pleasure by the sister, and in fact, 
with a good deal of trepidation. But everything went 
off successfully. Mary Tennyson found her way at 
once into the hearts of her prospective connections. 
Arthur Hallam himself was overjoyed at the result 
of this visit, and at the real good which he felt it had 
done. ''Mary," he wrote to his betrothed, ''is a 
decided favorite with all of us, and she has taken, I 
hope, one of her fancies to my mother. Alfred too has 
got up in my father 's good graces. " "I feel, ' ' he went 
on to say, "as if a great barrier was broken down 
between my family and that of my adoption. I have 
tasted a rich foretaste of future union. I have shown 
Ellen a sister. I have heard Somersby tones and ways 
of speech finding their way to the hearts of those who 
sit round the Walpole street fireside." 

There is no doubt that this visit did much to recon- 
cile the Hallams to the projected marriage of their son. 



602 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

Unfortunately it had no effect in hastening it, though, 
according to Tennyson's own words, the time of their 
union had been definitely fixed before the departure 
abroad on the last fatal journey.^ There is indeed 
something pathetic in Arthur Hallam's brief career 
that he should be condemned to pursue a profession 
he did not love and at the same time to be deprived 
of the companionship of the woman he loved. One 
who familiarizes himself with their story cannot but 
feel regret that this marriage so fervently desired 
might not have taken place at once ; that two persons 
so passionately attached to each other should not have 
had the privilege of spending together a portion of 
time which under the most favorable circumstances 
could have been at most the little that would have been 
allotted. Yet such is the influence of the mind upon 
the body that it might have lengthened Arthur 
Hallam's too brief existence. One, two, three years, 
or even more of a happy married life might have been 
theirs before the doom fell which was to separate them 
forever. At the same time Hallam's father acted from 
the best of motives. Prudentially, his course was 
perfectly justifiable, in spite of the sickness of heart 
which came to the lovers from hope deferred. Could 
the death of his son have been foreseen, the father's 
conduct might and probably would have been different. 
Very possibly he came to regret that he had not 
sanctioned the union of the lovers, so that at least some 
months if not years of married felicity might have 
fallen to Arthur's lot before his untimely death. At 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 304. 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 603 

all events, he granted to his son's destined bride an 
income of three hundred pounds a year, the sum which 
he had previously allowed to the son himself ;^ nor did 
he withdraw it after her marriage to Richard Jesse, 
a lieutenant in the royal navy. This event took place 
at Boxley in the latter part of January, 1842, the 
ceremony being performed by the Reverend William 
Jesse, vicar of Margeretting in the county of Kent. 
Upon the Hallams and their immediate circle the 
announcement of the engagement and intended mar- 
riage wrought at first a painful impression. To them 
Emily Tennyson had seemed almost a widowed member 
of the house, and the sufferings she had undergone with 
the physical breakdown which had followed the death 
of her lover, led to her being regarded with mixed 
feelings of pity and romantic admiration. But time 
and reflection brought wiser views. Coupled with them 
was pretty surely the consciousness that it would have 
been little to the gratification of the generous nature 
of her dead lover, could he know it, that the woman 
to whom he had been betrothed should spend her own 
life in unavailing regrets and let sorrowful memories 
deprive her of the consolation of a home and children 
of her own. 

To two members, in particular, of the Tennyson 
family Arthur Hallam's sudden and unexpected death 
came with as great a shock as it did to his own. Both 
to the brother and to the betrothed sister the blow was 
temporarily prostrating. Nor did either recover from 
it speedily. Emily Tennyson's health had been deli- 

I'The Journals of Walter White,' p. 141. 



604 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

cate enough to excite her lover's apprehension during 
the period of their engagement. Necessarily it was not 
benefited by this unexpected and crushing calamity. 
For many months she was ill, and though she recov- 
ered, she recovered very slowly. At times she was 
almost inclined to despair of her own life. '*We were 
waiting for her," wrote later one of her friends, **in 
the drawing-room the first day since her loss that she 
had been able to meet anyone, and she came at last, 
dressed in deep mourning, a shadow of her former self, 
but with one white rose in her black hair as her Arthur 
loved to see her. ' '^ As late as the middle of 1834, she 
had not met the Hallam family, though from them she 
had received the kindest messages. Utterly prostrated 
as she was in mind and body, she could not summon 
the mental or physical strength to make the journey 
to their residence. But to them she was at that time 
purposing to go as soon as she was sufficiently 
recovered from the state of weakness under which she 
was still laboring. ** What is life to me !" she wrote to 
her brother in July, 1834, about the intended visit; 
*'if I die (which the Tennysons never do) the effort 
shall be made. ' ' She expressed to him the great desire 
she felt to make the acquaintance of the Hallams, 
particularly of Ellen, who had been Arthur's confi- 
dante in his love affair. ''She will perhaps," she 
wrote, *'be the friend to remove in some degree the 
horrible feeling of desolation which is ever at my 
heart. "^ Upon Tennyson himself the blow was almost 

1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 108. 
2 Ihid., Vol. I, p. 135. 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 605 

as severe. Under the influence of the first despondency 
which came over him, he began the composition of the 
poem entitled 'The Two Voices,' which consists largely 
of a discussion of the time-worn question whether 
life is worth living. Originally it was styled 'The 
Thoughts of a Suicide.' Then also he began and 
continued at intervals for a long period of years the 
composition of the various pieces which were later 
to make up the volume soon to be considered. 

About Hallam himself and his commanding ability 
and lofty character there is a singular unanimity of 
opinion among those with whom he came in close 
contact. We are far from being limited to the tribute 
paid by Tennyson to the memory of his friend. The 
sentiments he expressed were shared by every one of 
the immediate circle with which the dead man was 
connected. It is well within bounds to say that no one, 
whose life was so early cut short, received more 
genuine tributes of the highest kind to the possibilities 
that lay in his future. The testimonials are not merely 
exceptional in the loftiness of the estimate expressed, 
they are rendered more exceptional from the character 
of those who express them. They came from men who 
were themselves to become on various lines among the 
most noted of their generation. Their utterances 
show the profound impression which Arthur Hallam 
made upon all his associates. In the circle by which 
he was surrounded at Cambridge he was generally, 
perhaps universally, reckoned the foremost; and this 
too from the very outset. Individual testimonies all 
agree. On more than one occasion Milnes bore witness 



606 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

to his superiority. In December of the very year 
Hallam entered the university, he wrote about him to 
his father. ''I have a very deep respect for Hallam," 
he said. ^'Thirlwall is actually captivated with him. 
He really seems to know everything, from metaphysics 
to cookery."^ Too much importance may easily be 
attached to the admiration of a boy for a boy, but the 
opinion of the historian, then in the full maturity of 
his powers, cannot so easily be set aside. Later Milnes 
repeated even more strongly his first impression. He 
* ' is the only man here of my own standing before whom 
I bow in conscious inferiority in every thing, ' ' he said 
in a letter of February, 1829.^ 

The sudden death of Hallam brought out these 
testimonials to his eminence in profusion. To his sister 
Frances, John Mitchell Kemble sent the news of the 
unexpected tragedy. ' ' It is, " he wrote, ' ' with feelings 
of inexpressible pain that I announce to you the death 
of poor Arthur Hallam, who expired suddenly from 
an attack of apoplexy at Vienna on the 13th of last 
month. Though this was always feared by us as 
likely to occur, the shock has been a bitter one to bear ; 
and most of all to the Tennysons, whose sister Emily 
he was to have married. I have not yet had the 
courage to write to Alfred. This is a loss which will 
most assuredly be felt by this age, for if ever man was 
born for great things, he was. Never was a more 
powerful intellect joined to a purer and holier heart; 
and the whole illuminated with the richest imagination, 

1 E. M. Milnes 's ' Life and Letters, ' Vol, I, p. 59, Letter of December 
8, 1829. 

2 Ibid., p. 62. 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 607 

with the most sparkling, yet the kindest wit." In a 
similar strain Alford paid his tribute. In a letter of 
1833 he spoke of Hallam in terms of unmeasured 
admiration.^ ''He was," he wrote, ''a man of a 
wonderful mind and knowledge on all subjects, hardly 
credible at his age — younger than myself. He was well 
acquainted with our own, French, German, Italian, 
and Spanish literature, besides being a good classical 
scholar, and of the most tender and affectionate dis- 
position; and there was something admirably simple 
and earnest in all he said or did. I long ago set him 
down for the most wonderful person altogether I ever 
knew. ' ' 

Later in his poem 'The School of the Heart,' pub- 
lished in 1835, Alford apostrophized his dead friend, 
though his name was not mentioned, celebrated his 
present achievement as the earnest of future achieve- 
ment which was to be his, had he lived.^ On other 
occasions, too, he bore in his verse similar emphatic 
testimony. So in the same style of unmeasured 
admiration spoke the calm and judicious Spedding. 
"The compositions which he has left," he said, "mar- 
vellous as they are, are inadequate evidence of his 
actual powers. ... I have met no man his equal as 
a philosophical critic on works of taste ; no man whose 
views on all subjects connected with the duties and 
dignities of humanity were more large, more generous, 
and more enlightened." Like witness to his repute 
among his early associates was borne by his Eton 

1 Letter to Fanny Alford in ' Life, Journals and Letters, ' 2d edition, 
1873, p. 93. 

2 Lesson V, Vol. II, pp. 65-66, edition of 1845. 



608 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

school-friend, Sir Francis Hastings Doyle. In his 
'Reminiscences' he tells us that ''all of us, even Mr. 
Gladstone, I think, felt whilst conversing with him, 
that we were in the presence of a larger, profounder, 
and more thoughtful mind than any one of us could 
claim for himself." A similar opinion was expressed 
by Frederick Tennyson, who in 1817 had left the school 
at Louth, and had gone to Eton to finish his prepara- 
tion for the university. "At Eton," he said late in 
life, "I think our impression was that Hallam, and not 
Gladstone, was the coming great man."^ 

To the tribute of affection and admiration which 
Tennyson paid in 'In Memoriam,' Gladstone's testi- 
mony to Arthur Hallam 's powers ranks next in 
importance. On several occasions he celebrated the 
actual ability and possible future of his schoolboy 
friend. "There was nothing," he said, "in the region 
of the mind he could not have accomplished. I mourn 
in him, for myself, my earliest near friend; for my 
fellow creatures, one who would have adorned his age 
and country, a mind full of beauty and of power, 
attaining almost that ideal standard of which it is a 
presumption to expect an example. When shall I see 
his like ? " At the very close of his life he repeated the 
same opinion. In an article on Hallam which appeared 
only a few months before his own death, he celebrated 
in enthusiastic terms the lost companion of his youth, 
and showed that the impression which the boy had 
produced continued still to exist in the mind of the 
man of advanced years. "It is simple truth," he 

1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. II, p. 407. 



AKTHUR HENRY HALLAM 609 

wrote, *Hhat Arthur Henry Hallam was a spirit so 
exceptional that everything with which he was brought 
into relation during his shortened passage through 
this world, came to be, through this contact, glorified 
by a touch of the ideal. Among his contemporaries at 
Eton, ... he stood supreme among all his fellows; 
and the long life through which I have since wound my 
way, and which has brought me into contact with so 
many men of rich endowments, leaves him where he 
then stood, as to natural gifts, so far as my estimation 
is concerned.'" 

In considering the weight to be attached to these 
opinions it is to be kept in mind that those who 
expressed them were at the time of their utterance, 
in some cases little more than boys, and boys further- 
more who were under the influence of strong personal 
affection. In those of the number who gave the later 
testimonies, they could hardly fail to repeat the 
impressions and beliefs of their early years. More- 
over, Hallam 's attainments — and for one so young 
they were unquestionably exceptional — were largely 
along lines about which his fellow students were not 
competent to form a judgment. Remarkable as they 
were, they were little likely to be characterized by the 
extent and proficiency with which they were credited 
by his admiring associates. All of us are disposed to 
attribute special breadth and depth of information to 
him who is conversant with subjects which lie outside 
of our own range of studies. He who knows something 

1 Contributed hy Gladstone to ' The Youth 's Companion, ' January 6, 
1898. 



610 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

of which others know little or nothing is fairly sure 
to gain the reputation of being possessed of much more 
knowledge than he actually has. This, which is true 
of men, is much truer of boys. To them knowledge 
possessed by a schoolfellow along lines upon which 
they themselves have not travelled, partakes of the 
nature of the extraordinary. Here was one of their 
number who was more or less familiar with the tongues 
of modern Europe, of which most of them knew nothing 
at all. He spoke of authors who to them were at best 
only names, even if they were as much as names. It 
is accordingly not to be wondered at that an exagger- 
ated estimate should be taken by them of Hallam's 
acquirements. Alford, as we have just seen, described 
him as being familiar with the literatures of France, 
Italy, Germany, and Spain. To have gained a really 
full and intimate acquaintance with a single one of 
these would have been almost the work of a lifetime. 

In the regular studies of his course at Cambridge, 
Hallam did not attain high rank. The fact is not 
remarkable. It was not because he could not have 
mastered them; he simply had no taste for them. In 
some instances he had a distinct distaste. On the other 
hand, those in which he took delight and showed the 
highest proficiency were not of the kind that led there 
to scholastic distinction. Two honors, nevertheless, 
fell to him during his university career; but neither 
of these implied proficiency in the special studies of 
the course. One of them was a prize for an essay upon 
the philosophical writings of Cicero. This was printed 
by his father in the collection he made of the writings 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 611 

of his son. In 1831 he obtained the college prize for 
an English declamation on the conduct of the Inde- 
pendent party during the Civil War. This has never 
been printed. He was graduated in 1832 without 
honors. But making the fullest allowance for his 
failure to achieve success in the distinctive studies of 
his course, it remains true that the impression he left 
upon all his associates, several of whom were to become 
among the most noted of their time in different ways, 
must be regarded as extraordinary. 

Accordingly, with such testimonials, coming from so 
many and so varied quarters, it may seem presump- 
tuous, not to say ungracious, to cast any doubt upon 
the fullest realization of the forecasts which were made 
about Hallam's future; to question the absolute 
correctness of a view which was based upon the knowl- 
edge which comes from intimate acquaintance. It is 
hardly credible that the man was lacking in the 
possibilities of highest distinction, who had attracted 
the peculiar regard and admiration of two persons in 
particular who were to become in their respective 
lines the most prominent men of their generation. 
There is little reason to doubt indeed that, in certain 
ways, Hallam, had he lived, would have attained 
eminence. He might hav^ become what Tennyson 
prophesied, ' ' a potent voice in parliament. ' ' He might 
have come to exercise distinct influence in shaping the 
policy and destinies of his native land. But even such 
fortune, high as it was, would hardly have satisfied the 
expectations of his admirers. It was no ordinary 
success that was predicted for him; it was to be 



612 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

extraordinary. For us it is only by considering what 
he has left behind that he can be estimated. Tennyson 
said justly that 

The world which credits what is done 
Is cold to all that might have been. 

It has to be cold; for the pages of history are strewn 
with the lives of men of unfulfilled promise, of men 
whose apparently high prospects of success have never 
ripened into fruition, and have sometimes ended in 
dismal failure. All this is not meant to imply that 
Arthur Hallam, had he lived, would not have fulfilled, 
at least to a great extent, the hopes of his admiring 
companions. Still it is noticeable that Gladstone in 
the last year of his life, in declaring his belief that his 
friend would have attained high distinction, added * ' as 
high as that attained by his distinguished father." 
But that father, justly eminent in certain ways as he 
was, was far from being reckoned among the greatest 
men of his generation. 

So far as his actual achievement, while living, gives 
any forecast of the future, it is manifest that Hallam 
would never have gained distinction as a poet. The 
verse he wrote was good of its kind ; but it is no better 
than what scores and even hundreds of accomplished 
men have written. It would have been worthy of high 
respect; but the world is overburdened with highly 
respectable poetry. The only reserve that Tennyson 
himself made in the estimate of his friend's powers 
was that though Hallam would have attained the 
highest summit of excellence in other ways, he would 



ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 613 

never have become distinguished as a writer of verse. 
But would he have attained distinction as a writer of 
prose? Here is something more difficult to decide; for 
excellence in prose, unlike excellence in poetry, is not 
so apt to have its existence sharply defined at an early 
period of life. Still even in that period manifestation 
of a certain degree of skill in expression is likely to 
display itself. But in spite of Spedding's designation 
of Hallam's compositions as marvellous, there is 
nothing in his extant remains which indicates much 
promise of that kind. Solid qualities appear in them 
abundantly. There is every reason to believe that 
whatever he said would always have been worth consid- 
ering for the material it contained. The knowledge 
would have been ample, the matter weighty, the 
thought occasionally profound ; and it would have been 
characterized by a remarkable sobriety of judgment. 
But in what has been preserved, that indefinable some- 
thing that we call style, which carries us along in spite 
of ourselves, which gives enduring charm to what 
would otherwise be perishable, this seems lacking. 
There is nowhere exhibited any of that lightness of 
touch, that grace, that peculiar happiness of expres- 
sion, which indicates the existence of the consummate 
master of prose. It might have come in time ; all that 
we can say is that there is little trace of it in his earliest 
production. As was the case with his father's work, 
the weight of matter is set off by little charm of 
manner; and without the latter, prose writing gives 
little prospect of present distinction or prolonged 
remembrance. 



614 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

To an inquirer who expressed to Mm the disappoint- 
ment he felt in reading the writings of Sterling, John 
Stuart Mill made the following reply. ''No one," he 
said, ''who had not heard his conversation could form 
the faintest conception of what he was."^ To account 
for the effect some men produce upon those with whom 
they come in contact, the influence of the personal 
presence must be taken largely into account. So it 
may have been with Arthur Hallam, though his early 
death prevents any conclusion on that point reaching 
any higher range than that of conjecture. Still, the 
impression produced by the writings of his which have 
been preserved is that in the pages of 'In Memoriam' 
a monument has been erected to his memory loftier 
than any which it would have been in his power to 
build for himself. 

There is one particular, however, in which no 
hesitation need be felt in expressing positive opinion. 
Personal characteristics Hallam possessed unquestion- 
ably, which to some at least will outweigh all con- 
ceivable distinctions of the intellect. These were the 
extreme sweetness and nobility of his nature, and the 
immeasurable charm of his manner. Character is 
something which can ordinarily be estimated with as 
much precision when life is at its beginning as when it 
has reached its close. To the loftiness and purity of 
Hallam 's nature there is but one testimony. It makes 
no difference whether it comes from the affectionate 
partiality of relatives, or from the intimacy of personal 
friendship, or from the impression produced by chance 

1 Grant Duff's 'Notes from a Diary,' 1881-1886, Vol. I, p. 75. 



ARTHUE HENRY HALLAM 615 

meeting with strangers. Everywhere it is the same. 
Fanny Kemble was far from sharing in the extreme 
admiration which her brother expressed for his 
friend's commanding ability. She was herself never 
given to effusive overstatement. She never lost her 
mental balance, or suffered her judgment to be swayed 
by the enthusiasm of others. This makes the tribute 
she paid to Hallam's character all the more emphatic. 
She spoke of the almost angelic purity of his nature 
in the account she gave in her 'Records of a Girlhood' 
of the friends who gathered about her as she was 
entering upon her own career. ''The early death of 
Arthur Hallam," she wrote, "and the imperishable 
monument of love raised by Tennyson's genius to his 
memory, have tended to give him a pre-eminence 
among the companions of his youth which I do not 
think his abilities would have won for him had he 
lived ; though they were undoubtedly of a high order. 
There was a gentleness and purity almost virginal in 
his voice, manner, and countenance; and the upper 
part of his face, his forehead and eyes (perhaps in 
readiness for his early translation), wore the angelic 
radiance that they still must wear in heaven. . . . On 
Arthur Hallam's brow and eyes this heavenly light, 
so fugitive on other human faces, rested habitually, as 
if he was thinking and seeing in heaven. ' ' 



CHAPTER XXIII 
IN MEMORIAM 

*In Memoriam' was published early in June, 1850. 
No work of Tennyson's had ever been ushered into 
the world with any, even the slightest, preliminary 
flourish of trumpets. But the indisposition to follow 
customary methods of attracting the attention of the 
public was never more signally manifested than in the 
case of this production. Reticence about it, both before 
and after its appearance, was carried to an extreme. 
No advertisement, not even the briefest, announced 
its coming till the actual day of publication. No 
preliminary notices of the work appeared in the press 
to excite the curiosity or the interest of readers. No 
name of the person who had written it was found on 
the title-page. Indeed, not only at the very outset, but 
years after its publication, when its authorship became 
well known everywhere, no indication of the source 
from which it came was given in Moxon's advertise- 
ments. It occupied a place by itself in the newspaper 
columns distinct from the other works of Tennyson. 
The title-page was blank save for the words *In 
Memoriam' and the name of the publisher and the 



IN MEMORIAM 617 

place and date of publication. The obverse page bore 
simply the inscription 

IN MEMORIAM 

A. H. H. 

obiit MDCCCXXXIII. 

These words gave no hint to any one, outside of a 
very limited circle, of the personality of the man in 
whose memory the work had been written. Arthur 
Hallam had not lived long enough to make his name 
familiar to the public during his lifetime, and beyond 
a few relatives and personal friends it had at this late 
day passed into that oblivion which waits even upon 
those who during the period of their activity are fairly 
well known. With all this, there was no attempt to 
hide the authorship of the work celebrating him; 
equally there was no attempt to reveal it. This latter 
is certainly true so far as the poet himself was con- 
cerned. But Moxon was too shrewd a business man 
to let knowledge of this sort remain hidden. The name 
of Tennyson had now come to have a distinct commer- 
cial value. Consequently, though the publisher did not 
intrude the identity of the writer upon the reader, he 
doubtless saw to it that adequate information should 
be conveyed with careful carelessness to possible 
purchasers of poetry. As a result, both author and 
subject were at once known to many and speedily 
became known to all. Even a few days before the 
official appearance of the work, Mudie, who had just 



618 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

set out on his conquering career as the founder of 
circulating libraries, advertised that fifty copies of 
Tennyson's new poem, 'In Memoriam,' could be had 
for the use of his regular subscribers at his place of 
business/ The early notices of the work had no 
hesitation in proclaiming its author, though they did 
not always state it as positive fact. 

One amusing exception there was to this general 
belief and practice. A brief but highly eulogistic 
notice appeared in the columns of a London weekly a 
fortnight after the publication of the poem. From 
internal evidence the critic concluded it to be the work 
of a woman. The blunder was rendered the more 
emphatic because this same periodical had previously 
announced the volume in its list of new books as the 
work of Tennyson. Of that fact both reviewer and 
editor were manifestly unaware. ''If by a female 
hand," Tvrote the former, "as it purports to be, we 
welcome to the Muses ' banquet, melancholy though the 
music be, one of their sweetest minstrels. ' '^ Naturally 
better informed contemporaries were unable to refrain 
from speaking somewhat derisively of the critic who 
had hailed the rising of a new poetical star in a 
widow's cap. Even had the author's name not been 
judiciously furnished to the reading world, the poem 
itself would have revealed its authorship to any one 
who had made himself familiar with Tennyson's 
previous productions; and this number had now 
become large. As a reviewer of the time remarked, 

1 London 'Times' of June 3; 'Spectator' of June 1. 

2 ' Literary Gazette, ' June 15, 1850. 



IN MEMORIAM 619 

in commenting upon the quiet way in which it had 
stolen into the world, ^'the most unostentatious publi- 
cation, the most exemplary secrecy, and the blankest 
title-page, could not long have kept the public in doubt 
as to the authorship of these poems. ' '^ 

Singularly enough the work ran the risk of disap- 
pearing altogether just before it came to be printed. 
The manuscript book containing it had been left by 
Tennyson at his lodgings in London on his return to 
the Isle of Wight. As soon as he discovered his loss, 
he sent word to Coventry Patmore, asking him to go 
to the house where he had been staying and recover 
if possible the work. Patmore acted at once. With 
some difficulty he succeeded in securing from the 
reluctant landlady access to the room which the poet 
had occupied but which had now been again let. The 
search was successful and the missing manuscript was 
forwarded to the author. Had it been lost, it would 
probably have been too much even for Tennyson's 
marvellous memory of his own productions to have 
reproduced it, at least in its entirety. 

Only two poems were added to the work as the 
successive editions appeared. It originally consisted 
of one hundred and twenty-nine pieces which for the 
sake of convenience Tennyson himself designated as 
** sections," and two poems which served as prelude 
and as conclusion. The second and third editions, 
which followed speedily, contained no changes save 
the correction of misprints. To the fourth edition of 
1851 was added what is now the present fifty-ninth 

I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' August, 1850, Vol. XVII, p. 499. 



620 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

section. This, though written before, had been sup- 
pressed. Nothing further was added till the publica- 
tion of the miniature edition of 1870. Then appeared 
for the first time the present thirty-ninth section. 
With that the poem assumed its final definitive form. 

'In Memoriam' had one distinction which none other 
of Tennyson's works had ever enjoyed. From the 
very moment of its publication it was greeted with an 
almost unanimous chorus of approval by the critical 
press. Inevitably there were degrees in the fervor 
with which the work was received ; but as a whole the 
reviewers reflected accurately for once the attitude of 
the educated public. The latter indeed was so enthu- 
siastic that hardly one of the former dared go so far 
in defying its verdict as to "hint a fault or hesitate 
dislike." Those who dissented from the general 
estimate did so silently; they rarely gave expression 
to their views in print. There were, however, occa- 
sional virulent attacks ; and there was, of course, half- 
hearted appreciation. 

One of the most singular beliefs entertained and 
expressed in several of the early critical notices was 
that 'In Memoriam' could not and would not be widely 
popular — at least this would be true of it at the outset. 
This was not a view taken by those who were disposed 
to regard the poet himself with a certain degree of 
indifference, not to say disfavor. Nor was it the view 
of the very few who thought poorly of the work itself. 
On the contrary, it was often held by some who were 
warm in their admiration both of Tennyson and of 
'In Memoriam.' Most convincing reasons were given 



IN MEMORIAM 621 

for this belief. The subject, it was said, was by its 
very nature monotonous. A series of variations on 
what was essentially the same theme could interest 
only a limited number, in spite of the beauty of the 
verse in which the theme was presented. 'The 
Examiner' — its article was doubtless written by 
Forster — spoke of the work in terms of highest praise. 
It declared that 'In Memoriam' was ''perhaps the 
author's greatest achievement." Yet it ended its 
review with the following prophecy : " It is not a poem 
to become immediately popular; the nature of the 
subject, the unavoidable monotony, and as it were 
weariness of sorrow, in whatever changing forms of 
beauty presented, would itself prevent this."^ Still, 
the writer added, that by its appeal to the imagination, 
the reason, and the faith, it would ultimately acquire 
and maintain its hold. The same discouraging view 
of the success of the poems was taken by 'The 
Atlas. ' ' ' They are too mournfully monotonous, ' ' were 
its words. "There is too much of the egotism of grief 
in them to suifer us to encourage the belief that 
they will find as large a circle of readers as other 
emanations of Tennyson 's muse. ' '' 

It might have occurred to these critics that 'It 
Memoriam' was a poem of almost universal appeal. 
Few are the households in which there are not vacant 
chairs. Few are the individuals who have not had 
to mourn the loss of those near and dear. To a world 
full of sorrowing hearts and of sad but sacred memo- 

1 June 8, 1850. 

2 June 15, 1850. 



622 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

ries this work came as a solace and a help. Equally 
did it appeal to another class. Everywhere could be 
found thoughtful men haunted and perplexed by 
doubts and fears, uncertain where to find a secure 
resting-place in any possible solution of the ever 
recurring problems of human life and destiny. To all 
such it was an unspeakable consolation and a help to 
dwell upon the struggles of a man who had fought his 
way through honest doubt, who had triumphed over 
despair, who had encountered and vanquished the army 
of fears which had been assailing their own hearts, 
and had finally secured for himself a firm foothold in 
faith. In truth his appeal, instead of being limited 
as even friendly critics thought, could hardly have 
been addressed to a wider circle of readers. Had 
Tennyson been seeking for immediate success, he could 
hardly have chosen a theme which would arouse the 
interest of more thousands. The effect it produced is 
brought out vividly in a letter of Archbishop Benson. 
**7n Memoriam," he wrote not long before his death, 
*'was inexpressibly dear to me for the best part of my 
life. It came out just when my mother and Harriet 
died. I sank into it and rose with it, and I used to 
teach — to love it.'" 

The result certainly discredited all the vaticinations 
of the critical prophets. No book of poetry of any 
author of the Victorian era ever made at once so 
profound an impression upon the minds of contem- 
poraries. This refers specifically to its influence ; but 

I'The Life of Edward White Benson,' by his son, 1899, Vol. II, 
p. 412. 



IN MEMORIAM 623 

the influence was reflected in its sale. Never indeed 
has any elegiac poem in the English language, or 
perhaps in any language, leaped at once immediately 
into so wide a popularity. The 'Poems' of 1842 and 
'The Princess,' from the point of view of great sale, 
had made their way slowly. Not so 'In Memoriam.' 
It shows how well recognized had now become Tenny- 
son's position that the first edition of the poem con- 
sisted of five thousand copies. It took only six weeks 
to exhaust this number. In the case of his other works, 
it usually required some time for the public to recover 
from the foolish opinions of men of letters ; but in the 
case of 'In Memoriam' no one troubled himself to wait 
for the verdict. In the middle of June the second 
edition followed. It in turn was followed by a third, 
which came out at the end of November. Nor did the 
demand then cease. A fourth edition appeared in less 
than three months, in January, 1851. Accordingly, 
within the year of its publication, four large editions 
of the poem had been put upon the market. No 
information has been published of the number of copies 
belonging to these subsequent issues; but they could 
not have been well less than the first, and were in all 
probability much greater. 

The public indeed had waited for no criticism to 
declare itself. Its enthusiasm outran all the calcula- 
tions of its literary advisers. Long before any periodi- 
cals had had the opportunity to express their judg- 
ments, the world of readers had taken the matter into 
their own hands. The very earliest notices of the 
poem, even when most favorable, were in a measure 



624 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

guarded. Not so those which speedily followed. As 
in the case of ' The Princess, ' the first utterances which 
were most outspoken in their praise, seem faint when 
compared with the fervid eulogies which soon came to 
be the fashion. Before the year was over, before it 
had in fact got well along, the critical estimate was 
marked by an enthusiasm which had never been mani- 
fested for any other of Tennyson's works. The 
* Westminster' printed an article which was almost 
wildly enthusiastic in praise of the work. It gave in 
full fifteen of the poems, and it was apparently with 
some difficulty that the writer was kept from giving 
them all.^ In truth, there was little limit to the 
panegyrics accorded everywhere. **No one endowed 
with a perception of what poetry is, could have closed 
the volume without a full conviction that it was the 
creation of the first poet of the day," said 'Tait's.'^ 
It is *'the noblest English Christian poem which 
several centuries have seen, ' ' said ' Eraser 's. '^ It went 
on to add in a reference to the anonymous character of 
the work, that the poet would have no quarrel with the 
critics who alluded to him as the author, ''were he 
aware of the absolute idolatry with which every utter- 
ance of his is regarded by the cultivated young men 
of our day at the universities." The practical una- 
nimity of fervent praise which waited upon the new 
work forms a sharp contrast to the recognition, at 
times almost grudging, which had been given to his 
two previous productions, favorable as that must be 

1 October, 1850, Vol. LIV, pp. 85-103. 

2 Vol. XVII, p. 499. 

3 Vol. XLII, p. 252. 



IN MEMORIAM 625 

considered in certain instances. For the first time in 
Tennyson's career, critical approval kept pace even 
remotely with popular approval. 

Two reviews, however, may be singled out for their 
depreciatory character. One comes from an English 
and one from an American source. The latter is worth 
mentioning only as a curiosity in criticism. The 
former deserves a more extended notice, partly from 
the time when and the place where it appeared ; partly 
because it embodied the usual stupid objections which 
were made to the poem; but mainly for the effect it 
wrought upon the feelings of a distinguished pulpit 
orator of the Church of England and for the impor- 
tance he attached to it. From his first appearance in 
1830 to the publication of 'In Memoriam,' Tennyson 
had been subjected to all sorts of criticism from silly 
panegyric to malignant depreciation. He had encoun- 
tered feeble criticism, supercilious criticism, patron- 
izing criticism, appreciative criticism, unappreciative 
criticism, just and discriminating criticism. But it 
was now his fortune to receive the attention of a critic 
who surpassed his contemporaries. To characterize 
suitably the folly of this particular piece of criticism 
makes one regretfully aware of the limitations of 
language. The writer, so far as inferences can be 
drawn from what he said, was a heavy, prosaic, 
muddle-headed man, who had read up several of the 
elegiac poems of the language for the sake of fixing 
pegs upon which to hang his discourse. His review 
appeared in the London ' Times ' a year and a half after 
the publication of 'In Memoriam' — to be precise, on 



626 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the twenty-eighth of November, 1851. It was headed 
'The Poetry of Sorrow,' and occupied three columns 
and a half. The title gave the critic opportunity to 
disport for a while over the field of elegiac verse ; and 
he improved it so far as he knew. It was in fact one 
of those discursive reviews which deal little directly 
with the matter in hand. Accordingly, no small part 
of the article had nothing to do with its real subject. 
But the critic refrained at last from exhibiting his own 
extensive reading, and bestowed his attention upon 
what was set before him. In so doing he made two 
things manifest. One was his assumed knowledge and 
actually profound ignorance of the poet's literary 
career. The other was his open confession of his 
inability to comprehend the meaning of certain pas- 
sages which it required peculiar incapacity not to be 
able to understand. There was indeed in this review 
a sort of perfunctory praise given to certain portions 
of Tennyson's work. The temper of the English 
people had now become such that this was an ingre- 
dient which the most censorious of critics felt it 
necessary to throw in. 

Tennyson had at last won his way to the headship of 
English poetry. He had lived through years of 
indifference and neglect, of depreciation indeed and 
venomous criticism. With an astounding ignorance 
of these facts in his literary history, the writer of the 
article in the ' Times ' began by paying a tribute to the 
easy path by which the poet had won his way to 
renown. ''Perhaps of modern poets," he wrote, 
"Mr. Tennyson has met with fewest obstacles on the 



IN MEMORIAM 627 

high-road to reputation. The famous horseman of 
Edmonton did not find his gate thrown back with a 
more generous abandonment of the tax." Accord- 
ingly, as the critical turnpike had of late been care- 
lessly attended, the writer felt it his duty to see that 
the rules of the road were more rigorously enforced. 
Thereupon he proceeded to point out certain leading 
defects in 'In Memoriam.' One was the enormous 
exaggeration of the grief. This was unreal, we are 
told. It produced a sense of untruthfulness which 
could not be removed. Far superior on this account 
were the lines of Dr. Johnson on the death of Levett. 
This single remark gives of itself a fairly complete 
conception of the taste and judgment of the critic. 
The second defect was the tone of amatory tenderness 
pervading the poem. This was something quite 
improper to be addressed by a man to a man. "The 
taste," he said, **is displeased when every expression 
of fondness is sighed out, and the only figure within 
our view is Amaryllis of the Chancery Bar." Still, 
it is fair to say that the critic was faithful throughout 
to his intellectual limitations. Shakespeare's sonnets, 
he tells us, were liable to the same objection. These 
as well as 'In Memoriam' must be condemned by the 
''tasteful" critic. 

Another objection to the poem was the obscurity 
pervading many of its passages. This same sort of 
obscurity, it was added, ran more or less through all 
of Tennyson's productions. It was obscurity which 
arose not from excess but from want of meaning. The 
critic found much that it was impossible for him to 



628 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

comprehend, — and after the manner of critics in 
general, he assumed because it was incomprehensible 
to him that it was beyond the limits of human compre- 
hension. Unfortunately for himself, he made the 
mistake of citing several of these incomprehensible 
passages. '*We have," he said in one instance, 
*' applied every known test without detecting the 
slightest trace of sense." His lack of comprehension 
was due to his own lack of sense. He was furthermore 
shocked by finding that the language occasionally 
bordered on blasphemy. As if blasphemy were not 
enough, he charged Tennyson also with bad grammar. 
Here again he gave specimens of certain violations 
of the rules laid down by Lindley Murray. These 
examples of inaccuracy furnished, as might have been 
expected, conclusive proof that the reviewer's lin- 
guistic ignorance was on a par with his literary taste. 
Then came that solemn pronouncement which is the 
tag to most cheap criticism. ''Small as this book is," 
he said, ''it may be abridged with profit." 

Along with its pretentiousness and arrogance, so 
much ignorance was displayed that the review excited 
among Tennyson's admirers merriment rather than 
irritation. Furthermore it excited amazement. The 
merriment was due to the character of the article; the 
amazement at the place of its appearance. Pope's 
couplet — 

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 
But wonder how the devil they got there, — 

expressed the feeling that generally prevailed. One 
of the consequences was that another writer set out 



IN MEMORIAM 629 

to review in turn Tennyson's critic. In this he enter- 
tained himself by showing the unusual limitations of 
knowledge and the unusual obtuseness of perception 
which had formed an indispensable requirement for 
writing the review in question. His article had for its 
title 'The ''Times" and the Poets. '^ This heading 
had evidently been suggested by Tennyson's reply to 
Bulwer — ' The New Timon and the Poets. ' The writer 
took delight in explaining, as if to a dull boy, the 
meaning of passages which according to his own 
account the newspaper critic had tasked his mental 
powers in vain to comprehend. It required no David 
indeed to slay this stupidest of Philistines. In com- 
menting upon the charge of undue amatory tenderness, 
he incidentally recalled to the attention of the reviewer 
the lament of David for Jonathan, and intimated that 
up to this time no one had dubbed the warrior king of 
Israel a sickly sentimentalist because of the intensity 
of affection he had expressed for his fallen friend. 

One of the passages whose meaning he kindly 
explained to the reviewer is worth citing here because 
of the opportunity it affords of giving Tennyson's 
own explanation of how he came to write it. These 
are the lines referring to Hallam — 

And over those ethereal eyes 
The bar of Michael Angelo. 

The reviewer in the 'Times' had not ventured to 
declare these lines incomprehensible. An uneasy 
dread that by openly confessing his ignorance he 

I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' January, 1852, Vol. XIX, p. 18. 



630 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

might be thought to expose the asses 's ears too con- 
spicuously led him to express himself with caution. 
'*We shall not say," he wrote, ''if we can comprehend 
the closing line. We can keep a secret." The secret 
which he dared not reveal his critic was kind enough 
to disclose. He referred him to so common a work 
as the 'Penny Cyclopaedia.' There under the medal- 
lion portrait of Michael Angelo which precedes the 
account of his life, the existence of the mysterious 
"bar" was plainly visible. The lines in fact were a 
remembrance on Tennyson's part of the words which 
Hallam had applied to himself in their university 
days. When asked later the meaning of the lines the 
poet recalled the incident which led him to make use 
of the phrase. "Those," he replied, "are almost 
Hallam 's own words. You must have noticed in all 
portraits of Michael Angelo the bulging, bony ridge 
over the eyes, technically called by artists the 'bar.' 
Hallam had this bony ridge very prominent, and one 
day, when we were at Cambridge, he came into my 
room, and while talking, passed his fingers across his 
brow and said, 'Alfred, I've got the real "bar" of 
Michael Angelo. ' ' '^ 

To the modern reader the only amusing thing about 
this mere twaddle of the critic is that any one should 
have taken it seriously. Of course Tennyson himself 
would always have to be excepted; for nobody could 
write anything sufficiently stupid not to give annoy- 
ance to that most thin-skinned of natures. Strangely 

1 ' Personal Eeeollections of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ' by W. Gordon 
McCabe, 'Century Magazine' (New Series), Vol. XLI, p. 731. 



IN MEMORIAM 631 

enough, there was another highly gifted man who 
shared in this feeling. This was the noted divine, the 
Reverend Frederick William Robertson. He was at the 
time incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton. There he 
wielded extraordinary influence both with his hearers 
and with the outside public by the fervor of his 
eloquence, and the exalted spirituality of his discourse. 
But though possessing many of the highest qualities 
of mind and heart, Robertson lacked almost wholly the 
sense of humor. It led him to underrate the intel- 
ligence of his fellow men. While other people were 
laughing not with the ' Times ' but at it, he was trans- 
ported with righteous indignation. He apparently 
fancied that this particular review would do serious 
harm to Tennyson's reputation, and affect injuriously 
the circulation of 'In Memoriam.' This was not 
because he attached any importance to the matter it 
contained, but because it had appeared in a paper 
wielding the supposed influence of the leading London 
daily. He appeared to believe that readers would 
forego the right of private judgment because an 
anonymous writer — very fortunately for his memory 
anonymous — had inserted a depreciatory review of the 
poem in this newspaper. 

Accordingly, Robertson set out to show that the 
critic did not understand the scope of the poem and 
the idea which underlay it. This he did incidentally 
in the course of two lectures^ which he delivered at 
Brighton, in February, 1852, before the members of 

1 ' Two Lectures on the Influence of Poetry on the Working Classes, * 
Brighton, 1853. 



632 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

the Mechanics' Institute. It was no difficult matter to 
carry out his object. Assuredly it was labor thrown 
away so far as it aimed to counteract the influence of 
the article; for the article had exerted no influence. 
No one in fact but Eobertson seems to have paid any 
serious attention to it. He seems to have forgotten 
that Tennyson was no longer an unknown and unin- 
fluential poet. Tennyson had found his audience, and 
that audience consisted of the immense majority of 
cultivated readers in all English-speaking lands. Such 
men paid little heed to an article, no matter where 
appearing, which did hardly more than leave a mingled 
impression of the wordiness of him who wrote it and 
the wordiness of what he wrote. Indeed Tennyson had 
now become a far greater power in literature than any 
periodical — whether daily, weekly, or monthly — could 
ever hope to be. Still, Robertson's attitude is of 
interest as showing how great was now the hold which 
the j)oet had gained over the minds of the thoughtful 
men of his generation, and how quick they were to 
resent the derogatory observations of the few who 
succeeded in getting them into print. 

One charge made by the reviewer excited particu- 
larly the wrath of Robertson. This was that of 
blasphemy. For the religious teachings of the poem 
he had unbounded admiration. *'To my mind and 
heart," he wrote to a correspondent, *'the most 
satisfactory things that have been said on the future 
state are contained in the 'In Memoriam.' "^ This 

1 Stopf ord Brooke 's ' Life and Letters of Frederick W. Eobertson, ' 
1865, Vol. II, p. 79. 



IN MEMORIAM 633 

charge of blasphemy had been enunciated by the 
re\iewer with an nnctuousness which would have done 
credit to Uriah Heep. ''Can the writer," he said, 
"satisfy his own conscience with respect to these 
verses, 

And dear as sacramental wine 
To dying lips is all he said. 

For our own part we should consider no confession of 
regret too strong for the hardihood that indited them. ' ' 
One may well hope that it is not so, but it is to be feared 
that this piece of affected sanctimoniousness led to a 
feeble alteration in the first verse. The lines now read 

And dear to me as sacred wine 
To dying lips is all he said. 

The change was made in the sixth edition, the first 
which followed the criticism in the ' Times. ' It is one 
of the few changes for the worse which are found in 
Tennyson's poems. It hardly seems possible that the 
poet of his own accord could have substituted the 
prosaic sacred for sacramental. 

It was nevertheless reserved for a reviewer on this 
side of the Atlantic to produce a criticism of 'In 
Memoriam' which, in spite of its brevity, made the 
article in the 'Times' seem painfully inadequate. It 
was a delightful specimen of original, or more properly 
speaking, of aboriginal criticism. The most desperate 
onslaughts on Tennyson of the decadents of the closing 
years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of 
the twentieth seem pale and bloodless beside the havoc 



634 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

wrought by this wielder of the tomahawk of trans- 
atlantic criticism who had set out to secure and hang 
at his belt the scalp of the poet and incidentally those 
of the poet 's admirers. The notice of ' In Memoriam, ' 
short enough to be given in full, appeared in 'Brown- 
son's Quarterly Review' for October, 1850. If internal 
evidence be of any value, it came from the pen of the 
editor himself. Brownson was a man of a good deal 
of repute in his time, though little remembered in these 
days. He was a redoubtable theological gladiator who 
had been at different times during his stormy career 
the doughty champion of almost every sort of ortho- 
doxy or heterodoxy, and had never been able to find 
himself in complete accord with any one form of 
Christian faith. He had been by turn Presbyterian, 
Universalist, Unitarian. He had now for some time 
taken refuge in the Roman Catholic faith. There his 
orthodoxy was occasionally viewed with suspicion and 
even underwent investigation. In literature he was 
one of those who were disgusted with the vogue which 
Tennyson was more and more gaining. He was 
incapable of appreciating the poet and made no 
attempt to hide the fact. In his secret heart he felt 
that his indifference was a proof of his own supremacy. 
An inferior race of men lacking in courage and ability 
might like Tennyson ; not so he. As a consequence he 
gave utterance to the following piece of criticism which 
should never be suffered to lie in its present obscurity; 
for he said on this side of the Atlantic what certain 
people on the other side felt but did not venture to 
express. 



IN MEMORIAM 635 

''This poem," remarked the reviewer, ''said to be 
by Tennyson, is presented us by its publishers in all 
the luxury of paper and type. We find our contem- 
poraries in England and in this country speak highly 
of it, and rank its author at the head of living English 
poets. We suppose we must be destitute of the bump 
of poetry, for we certainly are unable to admire 
Tennyson, or to discover any other merit in him than 
harmonious verse and a little namby-pamby sentiment. 
We broke down before reading twenty pages of the 
volume before us. It is doubtless all our own fault, 
and owing to our inability to detect or appreciate true 
poetic gems. In brief words, Tennyson is not a poet 
to our taste. That he has a poetic temperament, we 
can believe; that he scatters here and there a real 
poetic gem in his works, we are not disposed to deny ; 
but to us he is feeble, diffuse, and tiresome. He strikes 
us as a man of feeble intellect, as wanting altogether 
in the depth and force of thought indispensable, not 
to the poetic temperament, but to the genuine poet. 
He seems to us a poet for puny transcendentalists, 
beardless boys, and miss in her teens. "^ 

There is no question that this is a critical gem which 
should not be lost. 

With the publication of 'In Memoriam,' Tennyson 
entered upon the fulness of his fame. All the obstacles 
which had stood in the way of his acceptance by the 
public had been surmounted. The long days of depre- 
ciation or of half-hearted appreciation were now over. 
For the next twenty years he reigned not merely 

1 ' Brownson 's Quarterly Eeview, ' Vol. IV (New Series), pp. 539-540. 



636 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

without a rival but without any poetical contemporary 
being in what may be called speaking distance. During 
the period in particular covered by this work, he was 
in the heyday of his triumphant progress. To find in 
English literature any parallel to the general accept- 
ance of his superiority we must go back to the time 
of Pope in the second quarter of the eighteenth 
century; or to that of Byron in the first quarter 
of the nineteenth from the time of the publication of 
the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold' to his death at 
Missolonghi in 1824. 

Of course there were dissentients. Hostility there 
was, though it was rarely open. It found expression 
in anonymous attacks in newspapers to which the 
depredator could gain access. But for a long time 
there was not much even of this. The men who 
thought poorly of Tennyson's poetry either kept their 
opinion to themselves or for their own sakes might 
better have done so when they published it under their 
own names. It had no effect whatever upon the repu- 
tation of the poet so far as the public was concerned ; 
it was upon their own reputation with the public that 
the greatest damage was wrought. During the sixth 
decade, indeed, the domination of Tennyson assumed 
almost the nature of tyranny. The feeling prevailing 
during this period is strikingly brought out in a 
communication sent to the biographer of William 
Morris. It was written towards the end of his life by 
the church historian and minor poet, Richard Watson 
Dixon, Canon of Carlisle. Dixon entered Pembroke 



IN MEMORIAM 637 

College, Oxford, in 1851. "WTiile there he becaine 
associated with men — especially Burne-Jones and 
Morris — who were later to form a constituent part of 
the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood. The testimony he 
bore late in life — he died in 1900 — gives the modern 
reader a fair impression of the extravagant admiration 
which was entertained at that time for the poet, 
particularly among educated young men. ''It is 
difficult," he wrote, ''to the present generation to 
understand the Tennysonian enthusiasm which then 
prevailed both in Oxford and the world. All reading 
men were Tennysonians ; all sets of reading men 
talked poetry. Poetry was the thing; and it was felt 
with justice that this was due to Tennyson. Tennyson 
had invented a new poetry, a new poetic English ; his 
use of words was new, and every piece that he wrote 
was a conquest of a new region. This lasted till 
' Maud, ' in 1855 ; which was his last poem that mattered. 
I am told that in this generation no University man 
cares for poetry. This is almost inconceivable to one 
who remembers Tennyson's reign and his reception 
in the Sheldonian in '55. There was the general 
conviction that Tennyson was the greatest poet of the 
century ; some held him the greatest of all poets, or at 
least of all modern poets." The intensity of the 
admiration which then prevailed among the young 
men of the time is borne out by the Canon 's concluding 
remark. "As to Tennyson," he said, "I would add 
that we all had the feeling that after him no 
farther development was possible: that we were at 



/ / 

638 /LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 



the epd of all things in poetry. In this fallacy Morris 
shared."^ 

As already suggested, it is not meant to be implied 
that there was no discordant note in this unqualified 
admiration. That which had never happened in the 
case of anybody, no matter who or what he was, could 
not be expected to happen in the case of Tennyson. 
In him special limitations were perceived, or thought 
to be perceived, even by fervent admirers. The 
examples given, indeed, sometimes strike the reader 
as being rather the limitations of the critic than of 
the poet. Dixon gives as an illustration the attitude 
of Morris. That he described as a defiant admiration. 
''He perceived," wrote the Canon, ''Tennyson's limi- 
tations, as I think, in a remarkable manner for a man 
of twenty or so." The examples given of this per- 
ception would now strike men generally as remarkable, 
though in another sense from that intended by the 
writer, even had they come from a man of twice twenty. 
"He said once," continues the Canon, " 'Tennyson's 
Sir Gralahad is rather a mild j^outh.' Of 'Locksley 
Hall' he said, apostrophizing the hero, 'My dear 
fellow, if you are going to make that row, get out of 
the room, that's all.' Thus he perceived a certain 
rowdy, or bullying element that runs through much of 
Tennyson's work: runs through 'The Princess,' 'Lady 
Clara Vere,' or 'Amphion.' " As the only one who 
ever made this discovery in the pieces specified, the 
criticism deserves mention. "On the other hand," 
continued Dixon, "he understood Tennyson's great- 

1 J. W, Mackail's 'Life of William Morris/ Vol. I, pp. 44-46. 



IN MEMORIAM 639 

ness in a manner that we, who were mostly absorbed 
by the language, conld not share. He understood it 
as if the poems represented substantial things that 
were to be considered out of the poems as well as in 
them. ' ' 

No supremacy of this sort can be wielded by a man 
in his lifetime save for a limited period of years. 
Dryden in his great political satire, in speaking of the 
fickleness of the English people in the matter of 
politics, observed 

For governed by the moon, the giddy Jews 
Tread the same track when she the prime renews : 
And once in twenty years their scribes record, 
By natural instinct they change their lord. 

The same disposition shows itself in the case of their 
literary sovereigns. A really great author never loses 
a commanding position in the world of letters. But 
that commanding position in which there is scarcely 
heard a protest against his rule can hardly last much 
more than a score of years. Rival claimants to the 
throne will be set up by eager partisans. But after 
all, these are usually mere eddies in the stream of 
commendation. He is never displaced from his high 
position or even from the highest unless some man of 
indisputably greater genius arises. Tennyson's place 
at the head of English men of letters, though several 
times strongly assailed in his later years, was never 
seriously shaken during his lifetime. The limits of 
the present work do not permit the consideration of 
the reaction against his absolute domination which 



640 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 

first began to manifest itself during the closing years 
of the seventh decade. It never gained sufficient force 
to dethrone him; it had to content itself with pro- 
claiming to select circles the rights of rival claimants. 
Occasionally cliques could be found who sincerely 
persuaded themselves that they had disposed of his 
pretensions to general recognition because they found 
a ready concurrence with their views in the small body 
of which they formed a part. As Tennyson himself 
expressed it, they took the rustic cackle of their bourg 
for the murmur round the world. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Ackermann, Eudolph, 246, 259. 

Addison, 48. 

Adeline, 223, 237. 

^lius Lampridius, 48. 

^Eschylus, 223. 

Albert, Prince Consort, 21, 572, 
5S5. 

Alford, Henry, with Tennyson at 
Cambridge, 65; writes for 'The 
Tribute,' 271; Tennyson classed 
with, 364; his School of the 
Heart, 365, 477, 607; the 
'Edinburgh' places him above 
Tennyson, 372; Wilson on, 473, 
474, 480, 482; his opinion of 
Hallam, 610. 

Alison, Sir Archibald, 191. 

All good Things have not kept 
aloof, 350, 407. 

All Things will Die, 210, 235. 

Allen, Dr. Matthew, 376, 501, 502, 
508. 

Allingham, William, 432. 

'American Eeview,' 461, 558. 

Ami)hion, 638. 

'Amulet, The,' 250. 

Anacreontics, 265, 266. 

'Analytical Eeview,' 98. 

'Annual Eegister,' 277. 

' Anti- Jacobin Eeview,' 98, 

Antony to Cleopatra, 58. 

ApoUonius Ehodius, 47. 

'Apostles,' 69-84, 90, 301, 374. 

Archseus, see Sterling. 

'Arcturus,' 386, 387. 



Arnold, Matthew, his Prize Poem, 
80; his opinion of Wordsworth, 
141, 142; on Macaulay's Lays, 
487; FitzGerald's opinion of, 
552. 

Ashburton, Lord, 388. 

'Athenaeum,' founded, 83, 104; 
connection with 'Apostles,' 84, 
301; attacks Satan, 183; re- 
views Poems of 1832, 301; on 
Lockhart, 326 ; Cunningham 's 
contributions to, 343; reviews 
St. Agnes, 366; reviews Poems 
of 1842, 422, 424; cited by Fitz- 
Gerald, 551, 552; recommends 
Mrs. Browning for laureateship, 
577, 578, 582, 584, 588. 

'Atlas,' founded, 105; FitzGer- 
ald's opinion of, 105; review 
of Satan, 184; of Poems of 
1830, 226, 300; of Poems of 
1842, 426; of In Memoriam, 621. 

Audley Court, 388. 

Austen, Jane, 15, 551. 

Bailey, Philip James, 492. 
Baillie, Joanna, 470, 472, 473, 485. 
Barrett, Elizabeth, see Browning, 

Mrs. 
Barrow, Sir John, 95. 
Bartol, Cyrus A., 522. 
Barton, Bernard, 257-258, 570. 
Battle of Armageddon, 77. 
Beattie, James, 48. 
Beddoes, Thos. L., 482. 



644 



INDEX 



Bedford, Grosvenor, 254. 

Benson, Archbishop, 622. 

Blackbird, The, 392. 

Blackwood, William, 95, 120, 311. 

' Blackwood 's ' Cockney School, 
114, 298. 

'Blackwood's Magazine,' founded, 
100; sets new standard, 101; 
popular estimation of, 102; Chal- 
dee MS., Ill; Cockney School 
of Poetry, 114, 298; assails 
Hunt, 115-117; assails Shelley, 
117; assails Keats, 117, 120- 
124, 315-319, 324; Wilson its 
leading critic, 130, 181, 463; on 
Campbell, 140; on Montgomery, 
181, 185; reviews Tennyson, 230- 
243, 291, 321, 326, 336, 351, 401, 
402, 465-496; Tennyson's dread 
of, 293-294; Hypocrisy Un- 
veiled, 310; review of Wilson's 
Lights and Shadows, 311-312; 
Moir's relation to, 364; reviews 
Clare's Poems, 371; attitude 
towards authors, 476; on Ster- 
ling, 482-483; on Mrs. Brown- 
ing, 489. 

Blakesley, Dean J. W., 16-17, 76- 
77, 155. 

Bonaparte, 349, 414. 

'Book of Beauty,' 251, 258, 261. 

Boswell's Johnson, 19-20. 

Bowles, Caroline, see Southey, 
Mrs. 

Bowles, William Lisle, 191, 192, 
214, 259, 480. 

Bowring, Sir John, 207. 

Boyd, Hugh Stuart, 146. 

Bradley, Dean, 421. 

Bristed, Charles Astor, 277, 405, 
558. 

'British Critic,' 99. 

'British Review,' 99. 



Brooke, Stopford Augustus, 55-56. 

Brookfield, William Henry, at 
Cambridge with Tennyson, 64; 
opinion of Oxford, 72; gets 
Tennyson to contribute to ' The 
Keepsake,' 269; letter to, about 
Lady Wortley, 271 ; tribute to 
Hallam, 596. 

Browning, Robert, and publicity, 
10-11 ; opinion of Frederick 
Tennyson, 37, 221; friend of 
Forster, 105; impressed by 
Shelley, 152-153; Moxon's state- 
ment about Artevelde, 166, 357- 
358; his opinion of Charles 
Tennyson, 221 ; his opinion of 
W. J. Fox, 288; Moxon declines 
Paracelsus, 357, 358; his King 
Victor, 391; letter to Domett 
about the Poems of 1842, 399, 
400, 409; letter to Miss Barrett 
about Tennyson, 404, 405, 413; 
Forster 's panegyric of, 419, 485- 
486; Wilson's ignorance of, 483, 
491-492; letter to Miss Barrett 
about Moxon, 500; Mill's lack 
of appreciation of, 508; letter 
from Miss Barrett about The 
Princess, 531; approval from 
the Praeraphaelites, 549; his 
SordcUo, 549, 550; FitzGerald's 
opinion of, 551-552; Pollock's 
friendship for, 551; suggested 
for laureateship, 572, 584. 

Browning, Mrs. Robert, opinion 
of 'The Atlas,' 106; admires 
Wordsworth and Byron, 145- 
146; letter to Home about 
Montgomery, 192 ; contributes 
to Annuals, 259; publishing of 
poetry a speculation, ' 358; 
charged with imitating Tenny- 
son, 369, 370, 490; unable to 



INDEX 



645 



procure Poems of 1830, 384; 
her work praised by Wilson, 
489-490, 492; Miss Mitford's 
letter about her poems, 500; 
letter to Browning about The 
Princess, 531; thinks Hunt 
should be laureate, 577; Chorley 
recommends her for laureateship, 
578, 579, 580, 583-584, 588. 

Brownson, Orestes A., 634-635. 

'Brownson's Quarterly Review,' 
634-635. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 256. 

Buckingham, James Silk, 83. 

BuUer, Charles, 64. 

Bulwer, E. G. (Lord Lytton), at 
Cambridge, 64; writes a Prize 
Poem, 80; his popularity, 110; 
reviews of his works, 111; as- 
sailed by Eraser's, 185; con- 
tributor to Annuals, 258-259 ; 
reviews Poems of 1832, 304, 305 ; 
calls Tennyson ' School-Miss 
Alfred,' 322; publishes Eva, 
390; Wilson's opinion of, 482; 
his early verse, 516 ; his novels 
and plays, 516-519; his attack 
on Tennyson, 519-529, 629; re- 
lation between Tennyson and, 
524-525; mentioned, 508, 518, 
520, 521, 522, 523, 528, 529. 

Btionaparte, see Bonaparte. 

Burke, Edmund, 48. 

Burne-Jones, Sir E., 637. 

Burney, Fanny, 19. 

Burns, Robert, 130, 220. 

Butler, Fanny Kemble, see Kem- 
ble. 

Byron, Lord, Medwin's Journal, 
9; influence on Tennyson, 37-38, 
48-49, 52, 55 ; Hours of Idleness, 
41, 42; his posing for effect, 
49, 50; his influence on Charles 



Tennyson, 51 ; his influence in 
general, 68, 129, 134, 142-150, 
42], 482, 490, 492, 636; com- 
parison with Wordsworth, 68, 
S3, 154; at Cambridge, 71; 
comparison with Tennyson, 83 ; 
opinion of ' British Review, ' 99 ; 
Lockhart's review killed Keats, 
122; on Jeffrey's review of En- 
dymion, 123, 124, and CMlde 
Harold, 469-470; Wilson's opin- 
ion of, 130, 480; admired by 
Taylor, 148; comparison with 
Shelley, 153-157; Cain, 182; 
Moore's life of, 186; compari- 
son with Montgomery, 191; 
CMlde Harold, 308; Tennyson 
calls his poetry rhetoric, 339; 
attacks Jeffrey, 469; Bulwer 
compares Byron and Tennyson, 
529; his opinion of Rogers, 573; 
mentioned, 44, 48, 49, 119, 128, 
138. 

Caillie, Rene, 80. 

'Cambridge University Magazine,' 
459. 

Cameron, Mrs., 14, 168. 

Campbell, Thomas, influence on 
Tennyson, 49, 53; editor of 
'New Monthly Magazine,' 102; 
Jeffrey's opinion of, 129; posi- 
tion and influence, 139-141, 492, 
500; life of Lawrence, 186; con- 
tributor to Annuals, 259; ac- 
count of, in 'Fraser's, ' 359; in- 
fluence on Mrs. Browning, 370; 
Pilgrims of Glencoe, 390; Wil- 
son's criticism of, 480. 

Canning, George, 107. 

Carlyle, Thomas, reminiscences of 
Tennyson, 17; Life of Sterling, 
90 ; contributor to Annuals, 259 ; 



646 



INDEX 



account of, in 'Eraser's,' 359; 
refuses to review Montgomery's 
Luther, 391; French Bevolution, 
482; description of Dr, Allen, 
501 ; tries to secure pension for 
Tennyson, 504-505; his prose, 
508; his opinion of Tennyson, 
551. 

Gary, Henry F,, 258. 

A Character, 157. 

Charge of the Light Brigade, 213. 

Chaucer, 39, 71. 

Chech every Outburst, 266. 

Chesterfield, Lord, 204. 

Chorley, Henry Fothergill, critic 
of 'The Athenaeum,' 422-424, 
577-578 ; recommends Mrs. 
Browning for laureateship, 577- 
588. 

'Christian Examiner,' 383, 450. 

'Chronicle,' 108. 

'Church of England Quarterly Re- 
view,' 427, 435. 

Cicero, 48, 610. 

Clare, John, 371, 466. 

Claribel, 349. 

Clark, Willis Gaylord, 256. 

Claudian, 48. 

Cleghorn, James, 101. 

Colburn, Henry, 103. 

Coleridge, Hartley, 235, 354. 

Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 344, 

Coleridge, John Taylor, 110. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, at Cam- 
bridge, 71, 73 ; at Highgate, 
128; Jeffrey's opinion of, 129; 
his position and influence, 139, 
141; thought Charles Tennyson 
superior to Alfred, 214-215; con- 
tributor to the Annuals, 258- 
259; opinion of Tennyson, 343- 
345 ; Spedding 's opinion of, 354 ; 
accouint of, in 'Eraser's,' 359; 



Wilson's criticism of, 480; 
Forster's estimate of, 485. 

'Comic Annual, The,' 250. 

Conversazione Society, see 'Apos- 
tles. ' 

Cornwall, Barry, see Procter. 

Cowell, Prof. E. B., opinion of 
Browning, 551. 

Cowley, Abraham, 55, 72. 

Cowper, William, 48, 130. 

Crabbe, George, comparison of 
Tennyson with, 44; Jeffrey's 
opinion of, 129; Wilson's opin- 
ion of, 480; FitzGerald's opin- 
ion of, 552. 

Crashaw, Richard, 72. 

'Critical Review,' 97-98. 

Croker, John Wilson, Duke of 
Wellington sends for, 95; re- 
view of Endymion, 121, 124, 
316, 317, 321 ; review of Milnes's 
Poems, 372; his opinion of 
Tennyson, 372, 515; his domi- 
nance as a critic, 450. 

Croly, George, 120. 

Cunningham, Allan, 259, 343. 

Day Dream, 354, 392. 

Days that are no more, 266. 

Death of the Old Year, 300, 301. 

' Democratic Review, ' 396, 433, 
462. 

Deserted House, 237, 400, 423. 

de Vere, Aubrey, 271, 379, 547. 

'Dial,' 457-459. 

Dickens, Charles, 105, 491, 508. 

Dirge, A, 237, 349. 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 106, 107, 258, 
259, 508, 517, 578. 

Dixon, Richard Watson, describes 
admiration for Tennyson at Ox- 
ford, 636; quotes Morris on 
Tennyson, 638. 



INDEX 



647 



Dodsley, Robert, 204. 

Domett, Alfred, 399. 

Donne, William Bodham, letter 

from Trench about the Tenny- 

sons, 229; letter from Spedding 

about Alfred Tennyson, 355; 

his opinion of Browning, 551 ; 

letter to Barton about the lau- 

reateship, 570. 
Dora, 354, 388, 430, 439. 
Doyle, Sir Francis Hastings, the 

Oxford Union debate, 156, 157; 

tributes to Hallam, 596, 608. 
Dream of Fair Women, 284, 305, 

394, 405, 407, 410, 411, 412. 
Dryden, John, 40, 71, 200, 373, 

569, 639. 
Duyckinck, Evert A., 386. 
Dwight, John Sullivan, 383. 
Dyce, Alexander, 531-532. 
Dymg Swan, 235, 348, 403. 

'Eclectic Review,' 99, 541. 

Edgeworth, Frank, 387. 

' Edinburgh Literary Journal, ' 
184. 

'Edinburgh Review,' its position 
and influence, 94-95, 98, 110 
111, 124, 224, 469; notes an in 
difference to poetry, 133, 134 
on Shelley and Keats, 145 
on Montgomery, 187, 193-195 
Jeffrey as editor, 314; first ref- 
erence to Tennyson, 365 ; on the 
Stanzas, 368; places Alford 
above Tennyson, 372; Shelley 
as model for ' Tennysonites, ' 
373; Tennyson expects attack 
from, 389; review of Poems of 
1842, 436-437; review of The 
Princess, 547 ; FitzGerald 's opin- 
ion of, 551 ; mentioned, 130 n. 

Egerton, Lord Francis, 508. 



Eleanore, 303, 348, 407, 408. 

Elegiacs, 349. 

Eliot, George, 551. 

Elliott, Ebenezer, 480. 

Emerson, R. W., calls upon Words- 
worth, 214; on gifts, 253; ad- 
miration for Tennyson, 448, 457, 
459 ?! ; letter from Carlyle about 
Tennyson, 504. 

'English Review,' 98. 

English War Song, 234, 349. 

' Englishman 's Magazine, ' 221, 
232, 233, 266, 282. 

Enoch Arden, 88. 

Etty, William, 189. 

' Examiner, ' Tennyson 's lines in, 
9; editors, 105; Mrs. Brown- 
ing's opinion of, 106; the Prince 
Regent, 115; review of Poems 
of 1842, 338, 419, 421, 423, 440, 
541, 553, 621. 

Falconer, Arabella, 573. 

Felton, Prof. C. C, review of 
Poems of 1842, 450-454, 457; 
on imitations of Tennyson, 455, 
456. 

Fields, James T., 557. 

'Finden's Scrapbook,' 251. 

FitzGerald, Edward, preserved 
casual utterances of Tennyson, 
6; comparison of Frederick and 
Alfred Tennyson, 37, 551; Ten- 
nyson did not consort with him 
at Cambridge, 65; his opinion 
of 'The Atlas,' 105; letter to 
Frederick Tennyson on the son- 
net, 219; his opinion of Croker's 
article on Keats, 321; friend- 
ship with Tennyson and Sped- 
ding, 353-356, 389; letter from 
Tennyson about Poems of 1842, 
385; letters to Frederick Tenny- 



648 



INDEX 



son about it, 387, 389, 420, 421, 
422; letter to Pollock about it, 
438; feared lack of appreciation 
for it, 439; letter from Carlyle 
about laureateship, 504; letter 
to Frederick Tennyson about 
The Princess, 530, 550; esti- 
mates of English writers, 551, 
552; of Tennyson, 551-553. 

Fletcher, John, 371. 

Floioer, The, 88. 

Fonblanque, Albany, 105. 

Forbes, James David, 511, 513. 

Fordyce, Dr. James, 537, 538. 

Foresters, The, 212. 

Forget-me-not (poem), 400, 409. 

'Forget Me Not' (annual), 246, 
247, 253, 254, 256, 259, 261. 

Forster, John, joins the 'Exam- 
iner,' 105; review of Poems of 
1842, 338, 419, 421, 440; his 
opinion of Browning, 485, 486; 
sent The New Timon to ' Punch, ' 
527; review of The Princess, 
541, 553 ; review of In Memo- 
riam, 621. 

'Fortnightly Eeview, ' 54. 

Fox, William Johnson, 288-289, 
369. 

Fragment, A, 265. 

Eraser, Hugh, 102. 

' Eraser 's Magazine, ' founded, 
102; on Prize Poems, 86; esti- 
mate of contemporary poetry, 
131, 133; criticism of Campbell, 
140; of Montgomery, 185, 188; 
Gallery of Literary Portraits, 
359; review of LocTcsley Hall, 
440 ; of The Princess, 548 ; of 
In Memoriam, 624. 

'Friendship's Offering,' 247, 248, 
253, 261, 266, 267. 

Fuller, Margaret, 457-458, 459 n. 



Fytche, Elizabeth, 2. 
Fytche, Stephen, 45-46. 

Gardener's Daughter, 354, 388, 
430, 439. 

'Gem, The,' 261, 265, 268. 

'Gentleman's Magazine,' 44, 180, 
183. 

George IV (then Prince Eegent), 
115. 

Gibbon, Edward, 48. 

Gifford, William, 101, 110, 112, 
360. 

Gilfillan, George, his opinion of 
Tennyson, 287; review of Lochs- 
ley Hall, 444. 

Gladstone, W. E., letters from 
Hallam about Maurice, 73, and 
Timbuctoo, 82; Milnes's charac- 
terization of, 155 ; as a speaker, 
158; Tennyson and the laureate- 
ship, 513; friendship with Hal- 
lam, 589, 590, 594; thought 
Hallam should have gone to Ox- 
ford, 592; letters from Hallam 
about Cambridge, 593 ; notes the 
ill health of Hallam, 594; trib- 
utes to Hallam, 590, 592, 596, 
608-609, 612. 

God's Benunciations against Pha- 
raoh-Hophra, 44. 

Godiva, 388, 431, 439, 448. 

Goethe, 67, 141. 

Golden Days of Good Haroun 
Alraschid, 230. 

Golden Supper, 308. 

Goldsmith, 200. 

Goose, The, 392. 

Gordon, Mrs. J. T., 402, 403. 

Gould, Hannah Flagg, 256. 

'Graham's Magazine,' 462, 

Granville, Lady Jane, 573. 

Granville, Lord, 573. 



INDEX 



649 



Grasshopper, The, 235. 

Gray, Thomas, 48, 53, 71, 340, 341, 

569. 
GreviUe, C. C. F., 166. 
Griffin, Gerald, 222. 
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, estimate 

of Tennyson, 460. 

Hadley, Prof. James, review of 
The Princess, 556, 557. 

Hall, Samuel Carter, 250. 

Hallam, Arthur Henry, birth, and 
education at Eton, 589-590; 
meets Gladstone, 589-590; visits 
Italy, 591 ; predicts pilgrimages 
to Tennyson's home, 4-5; goes 
to Cambridge, 591-593; friend- 
ship with Tennyson, 65, 332, 593, 
596; competes for prize poem, 
78; reprints Shelley's Adonais, 
151; letter to Gladstone about 
Timbuctoo, 82; his opinion of 
that poem, 85 ; visits Tennyson 
at Somersby, 281 ; meets Emily 
Tennyson, 596; engaged to her, 
3, 281, 597-602; joins the 
'Apostles,' 76-77; plans to edit 
poems with Tennyson, 76, 205; 
the Oxford Union debate, 154- 
156, 159; journey with Tenny- 
son to the Pyrenees, 90-92; 
sends Poems of Two Brothers 
to Hunt, 206-207, 221; effect 
upon Hunt, 211-212; letter to 
Emily Tennyson about Coler- 
idge, 215; review of the Poems 
of 1830, 222-224, 232, 236; his 
indignation at Wilson 's review, 
238; studies law, 594; letter to 
Hunt on Tennyson 's income, 
280; letters to Trench and Hunt 
about the Poems of 1832, 282- 
283; letter to Tennyson about 



them, 302, 401; anxiety about 
the lines To Christopher North, 
291; asks Tennyson not to give 
up The Lover's Tale, 307; visits 
the Rhine with Tennyson, 308- 
309; his influence on Tennyson, 
332; objects to 'madman' as 
applied to Bonaparte, 414; his 
aunt's legacy to Tennyson, 502; 
letter about The Princess, 532; 
goes to continent, 594-595 ; death 
and burial, 595-596; Tennyson's 
grief, 333, 356, 605; Remains 
printed, 596; Michael Angelo's 
'bar,' 629-630; tributes to his 
character, 605-615; his attain- 
ments and promise, 609-611; 
prize essays, 610-611; In Memo- 
riam, 616-617. 

Hallam, Ellen, 595, 601, 604. 

Hallam, Henry, calls Peel's atten- 
tion to Tennyson's merits and 
needs, 509-511; correspondence 
with Peel and Tennyson about 
Tennyson's pension, 508, 511- 
512; on Tennyson's untidiness, 
517; prints his son's Remains , 
596; meets Emily Tennyson, 
600; attitude towards his son's 
marriage, 601-603 ; mentioned, 
589, 591. 

Hallam, Henry Fitzmaurice, goes 
to Cambridge, 592; dies, 596. 

Hare, Julius Charles, at Cam- 
bridge, 67; comparison of 
Schelling, Goethe, and Niebuhr, 
67; opinion of Wordsworth, 68; 
asked to write for 'The Trib- 
ute,' 271; reads Tennyson's 
poems, 328. 

Harold, 524. 

Hastings, Lady Flora, 360. 

Hawkins, Sir John, 20. 



650 



INDEX 



Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 256, 425. 

Ilaydon, Benjamin E., 189. 

Hazlitt, William, 145. 

Heath, Charles, 251, 255, 258, 263, 
264, 307. 

Heber, Eeginald, 80. 

Hemans, Mrs., 259, 455. 

Heraud, John Abraham, 132. 

Herbert, George, 72. 

Hero to Leander, 404, 415. 

Herrick, Robert, 72. 

Hesperides, 301, 305, 350, 392, 400, 
407, 415. 

Hobhouse, Lord, 573. 

Hogg, James, 104, 259. 

Holland, Lord, 573, 

Hoist, Theodore von, 189. 

Holy Grail, The, 566. 

Homer, 209, 326, 358, 473. 

Hood, Thomas, 222, 250, 261, 265, 
506. 

Horace, 14, 48. 

Home, Richard Hengist, 192, 369. 

Houghton, Lord, 156, 261, 504. 

Ho^v and the Why, The, 234, 349. 

Howitt, Mary, 544. 

Howitt, William, 524. 

' Howitt 's Journal,' 544. 

Hume, David, 48. 

Hunt, John, 105. 

Hunt, J. H. Leigh, starts the 
'Literary Examiner,' 105; re- 
flections on the Prince Regent, 
115; ' Blackwood 's ' attacks 
him, 114-118; Loekhart's review 
of his Lord Byron, 119; Croker 
calls Keats a copyist of Hunt, 
122, 123; starts 'The Tatler,' 
206; reviews Poems of 1830, 
206, 207, 211-213, 215, 221, 231, 
237; on Charles Tennyson, 216; 
criticises Hallam, 223; Wilson 
on, 232, 236, 296; letters from 



Hallam, 206, 207, 280, 283; edi- 
tor of 'Monthly Repository,' 
369; his Palfrey, 390; reviews 
Poems of 1842, 427, 434-436, 
515; his Abou hen Adhem, 460; 
on Kemble, 515; the laureate- 
ship, 576-577, 580, 583; men- 
tioned, 129, 139, 222, 364, 371, 
466, 482. 

Hurst, Thomas, 248, 249. 

Hutton, Richard Holt, 106. 

Idylls of the King, 430, 491. 

In Early Youth I Lost my Sire, 

52. 
In Memoriam, 92, 363, 374, 456, 

495, 551, 566, 584, 585, 589, 596, 

608, 614, 616-640. 
In the Gloomy Night, 348. 
In the Valley of Cauteretz, 92. 
'Iris, The,' 250. 
Irving, Washington, 256. 
Isabel, 237, 348. 

Jackson, Messrs., 41, 46, 60. 

Jeffrey, Francis, editor of 'Edin- 
burgh,' 95; his supremacy in 
criticism, 123, 314; not resent- 
ful, 469, 470; had hosts of 
friends, 112; Byron resents his 
criticism of Keats, 123 ; at- 
tacked by Byron, 470; said 
Byron had no successor, 129; 
'Lake School,' 298; on Pollok, 
178; on Joanna Baillie, 471; 
succeeded by Napier, 314. 

Jerdan, William, editor of 'Lit- 
erary Gazette,' 103, 425; his 
character as a critic, 294-296, 
425; Wilson on, 104; Southey 
on, 104, 295-296; review of 
Lamb, 104, 295-297; 'Baa- 
Lamb' school, 297-298; reviews 



INDEX 



651 



Poems of 1830, 296-299; reviews 
Poems of 1842, 383-384; in 
'Fraser's' Gallery, 359; Auto- 
biography, 425. 

Jesse, Richard, 603. 

Jesse, William, 603. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 19, 20, 44, 
113, 627. 

Jones, Sir William, 48. 

Juvenal, 48. 

Kate, 392. 

Keats, John, Tennyson on Milnes 's 
Life of, 8, 10, 11; a disciple of 
Plunt, 123; position as a poet, 
161, 162, 225, 316-318, 360, 382, 
451, 497, 498; Lockhart's attack 
in 'Blackwood,' 114-120, 122, 
123, 299, 315, 318, 324; Lock- 
hart on Endymion in 'Quar- 
terly,' 119; Croker on Endymion 
in 'Quarterly,' 121-123, 321; 
Jeffrey on Endymion, 123-124; 
Lockhart again attacks Keats 
in 'Quarterly,' 316-319; St. 
Agnes, 367, 381; Bulwer on 
Keats, 304, 521, 523; FitzGer- 
ald on, 552; mentioned, 128, 
138, 145, 151, 206, 211, 223, 
224, 371, 373, 404. 

Keble, John, 421. 

'Keepsake,' 251, 253, 255, 256, 
263, 269, 271, 366, 379. 

'Keepsake Fran§ais, ' 251. 

Kemble, Fanny, receives Poems of 
1830 from her brother, 76; on 
English newspaper writers, 109; 
on Poems of 1832, 290; enthu- 
siasm for Tennyson, 328-329, 
396; on Poems of 1842, 396, 397, 
419, 433; De Montfort, 471; 
letter to Egerton about laureate- 
ship, 508, 509; death of Hallam, 



606; opinion of Hallam, 615; 
mentioned, 488. 

Kemble, John Mitchell, on the 
' Apostles, ' 70, 84 ; on the Poems 
of 1830, 76 ; letters from Trench 
on the 'Athenasum,' 84; Span- 
ish expedition, 90-91 ; letter to 
his sister about Coleridge, 215; 
letter to Trench on the Poems 
of 1832, 283; intimacy with 
Tennyson, 396; De Montfort, 
471; Lamb's opinion of, 515; 
on death of Hallam, 606. 

Kinglake, Alexander William, 65, 
372. 

Kingsley, Charles, 440, 508, 548. 

' Knickerbocker Magazine, ' 277, 
278, 405. 

Knowles, James Sheridan, 482, 
505, 506, 521. 

Eraken, The, 235, 348. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 392, 413, 
638. 

Lady of Shalott, 284, 289, 298, 
348, 394, 407, 408, 462, 495. 

Laing, Major A. G., 79. 

Lake, John, 292-294. 

Lamb, Charles, 104, 161, 222, 257, 
295-297, 356. 

Landon, Letitia E., Ill, 185, 259. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 77, 129, 
139, 258, 259, 270, 378. 

Lang, Andrew, 55, 406. 

Levett, Robert, 627. • 

Lewis, George Cornwall, 570, 571. 

'Literary Chronicle,' 43. 

' Literary Examiner, ' see ' Exam- 
iner. ' 

'Literary Gazette,' started, 103; 
its position and influence, 104, 
132, 294; on Taylor, 169; on 
Montgomery, 178-180; on 'The 



652 



INDEX 



Keepsake,' 252; on 'The Gem,' 
268; on the Poems of 1832, 294- 
299 ; on the Poems of 1842, 382, 
383, 424-426; on In Memoriam, 
618; mentioned, 62, 197, 522. 

'Literary Souvenir,' 248, 249, 256. 

'Literary Squabbles,' 528. 

Lockhart, John Gibson, editor of 
'Quarterly,' 110; letter to Black- 
wood about it, 95; his influence, 
95, 96, 124, 324-326, 328-330, 
449, 451, 522, 524; his character, 
111-113, 118, 119, 310, 318, 468; 
letters from Scott on newspaper 
work, 108, and on the Annuals, 
254; on Taylor, 165; does not 
review Bulwer, 111 ; on The 
Cockney School of Poetry, 114- 
120; on Keats, 296, 299, 316- 
319; review of Poems of 1832, 
310-324, 325, 326, 328-330, 450; 
its effect upon Tennyson, 405- 
413, 466; in 'Eraser's' Gallery, 
359 ; opens ' Quarterly ' to friend- 
ly review of Poems of 1842, 
427, 428, 432, 433, 515; men- 
tioned, 259, 465. 

LocTcsley Hall, 374, 400, 424, 430, 
440, 442, 444, 445, 448, 454, 
462, 500, 505, 638. 

'London Chronicle,' 62, 121. 

'London Magazine,' 101. 

'London Eeview,' 98, 346, 434. 

Longfellow, 557-558 n. 

Lost Hope, 234. 

Lotus Eaters, 284, 348, 394, 397, 
407, 410, 462. 

Love, Pride, and Forgetfulness, 
234. 

Love Thou Thy Land, 392. 

Lover's Tale, 307, 414. 

Lowell, J. E., copies Tennyson's 
early poems, 446; the Poem^ 



of 1842, 386; Felton's opinion 
of, 455; on Bulwer, 523; on 
The Princess, 559-562. 

Lucretius, 48. 

Lushington, Edmund, 388, 502. 

Lushington, Henry, 533. 

Lytton, Baron, see Bulwer. 

Lytton, Earl of, 524. 

Macaulay, on Montgomery, 185, 
187, 193-199; on Tennyson, 491, 
508; on Eogers, 573, 574; Mont- 
gomery on, 190, 196; Maunder 
on, 196-199; mentioned, 64, 80, 
386, 391, 487, 488, 507. 

Mackay, Charles, 571. 

Mackenzie, Henry, 311, 312, 314. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 259. 

Maclise, Daniel, 189. 

Macmillan, Messrs., 330. 

Macready, W. C, 170, 171. 

Maginn, William, 102, 120. 

Manning, Cardinal, 156, 159. 

Maplethorpe, 34. 

Mariana, 237, 347, 494, 499, 500, 
520. 

Mariana in the South, 394, 407, 
408. 

Martial, 48. 

Martin, John, 189. 

Mason, William, 48. 

'Massachusetts Quarterly Eeview,' 
559. 

Maud, 273-275, 278, 444, 456, 551, 
637. 

Maunder, Samuel, 196, 197. 

Maurice, Frederick Denison, 64, 
73, 83, 84. 

May Queen, 284, 348, 392, 420. 

Me my own fate to lasting sorrow, 
267. 

Meadows, Kenny, 264. 



INDEX 



653 



Medwin, Thomas, 9. 

Meleager, 399. 

Merivale, Charles, 65, 69, 279, 280, 
282. 

Merivale, John H., 69. 

Mermaid, 235, 349, 403. 

Merman, 235, 349, 403, 

Michael Angelo's 'bar,' 630. 

Mill, John Stuart, review of 
Tennyson, 342, 346-351, 364, 
434; its effect upon Tennyson, 
414; on the reviews of Tenny- 
son in 'Blackwood's' and the 
'Quarterly,' 352, 353; on Ster- 
ling, 614. 

Miller's Daughter, 284, 300, 301, 
394, 396, 397, 407, 409. 

Milman, Henry Hart, 80, 81, 259. 

Milman, Mrs., 329. 

Milnes, E. M., with Tennyson at 
Cambridge, 65; letter from 
Blakesley about Tennyson, 16, 
17; competes for prize poem, 78; 
on Timbuctoo, 82; The Oxford 
Union Debate, 154-156, 159; 
life of Keats, 8; letter from 
Monteith about Poems of 1830, 
223; asks for 'The Gem,' 268; 
asks Tennyson to write for 
'The Tribute,' 271, 272; 'Quar- 
terly' reviews his Poems, 372, 
373, 455; letters to de Vere 
about Tennyson, 379; from 
Trench about him, 380; from 
Sumner about him, 448; reviews 
Poems of 1842, 427, 434; the 
laureateship, 504-506, 509, 510, 
512, 572; Hallam's opinion of, 
510; his opinion of Hallam, 605, 
606. 
Milton, 39, 40, 48, 55, 59, 71, 
132, 133, 141, 177, 186, 208, 210, 
221, 223, 373, 473, 532, 537, 538. 



Mitford, Mary E., 222, 259, 445, 
499, 531, 577. 

Moir, David Macbeth, 364, 466, 
482. 

Moliere, 142. 

Monteith, Eobert, 223. 

Montgomery, James, 186, 270. 

Montgomery, Eobert, 178, 179, 181- 
203, 259, 391, 480. 

'Monthly Eepository,' 287-289, 
369. 

'Monthly Eeview,' 97, 98, 184-185. 

Moore, Thomas, 44, 48, 129, 139, 
142, 186, 259, 270, 359, 480, 573. 

More, Hannah, 256. 

'Morning Post,' 115. 

Morpeth, Lord, 266. 

Morris, William, 552, 636-638. 

Morte d' Arthur, 378, 388, 432, 439, 
462. 

Motherwell, William, 222, 482. 

Moxon, Edward, publishes 'Eng- 
lishman's Magazine,' 221, 222, 
282; Tennyson and that maga- 
zine, 282; Poems of 1832, 307, 
357, 358; Poems of 1842, 387, 
417, 453, 500, 501; In Memo- 
riam, 616, 617; on Tennyson's 
sensitiveness to criticism, 400; 
loses on all poets but Tennyson, 
500; Moxon and Taylor, 164- 
166, 357; and Browning, 166, 
357; and Lamb, 296. 

Mudie, Messrs., 617. 

Murray, John, 96, 106, 108, 124, 
164, 310, 311, 

Murray, Lindley, 628. 

My Early Love, 277. 

Nadir Shah, 49. 

Napier, Macvey, 109, 194, 436, 

Napoleon, 143, 414. 



654 



INDEX 



National Song, 212, 234, 349, 

'New Englander, ' 556. 

'New London Literary Gazette,' 

399, 
'New Monthly Magazine,' 102, 

111, 131, 140, 224, 225, 304, 485, 
New Timon and the Poets, 525- 

526, 629, 
New Year's Eve, 301, 348. 
Niebuhr, B. G., 67. 
No More, 265. 
North, Christopher, see Wilson, 

John, 
'North American Eeview, ' 455, 

456, 523, 
'North British Eeview,' 579, 
Northampton, Marquis of, 270, 

271, 
'Notes and Queries,' 4, 60, 61. 
Nothing Will Die, 210, 235. 

Barling Boom, 290, 291, 305, 

309, 321, 407, 423, 520. 
Oalc of the North, 43. 
O'Connell, Daniel, 517. 
Ode on the Death of the Duke of 

Welli7igto7i, 456. 
Ode to Memory, 35, 237, 430, 494. 
CEnone, 284, 298, 301, 305, 342, 

348, 394, 407, 410, 448, 461, 462, 

498. 
Of old sat Freedom on the Heights, 

392. 
Oldham, John E,, 156, 
Opie, Mrs., 247. 
Oriana, 223, 230, 237, 494. 
Ossian, 48. 
Ovid, 48. 

Owl, The, 235, 289, 349, 403. 
' Oxford University Magazine, ' 

327, 

Page, Mrs., 264. 



Palace of Art, 284, 302, 304, 348, 
394, 407, 410-412, 432. 

Palgrave, Francis Turner, 14. 

Panizzi, Sir Anthony, 591. 

Park, Mungo, 79. 

Patmore, Coventry, 619. 

Peel, Sir Eobert, 502, 505, 506, 
508-513, 517. 

Persia, 58, 

Phrenology, 51. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, scorns charge 
of affectation against Tenny- 
son, 338; proclaims Tennyson's 
superiority as poet, 461-462, 
561. 

Poems by Tivo Brothers, 41-62, 
68, 215, 

Poems chiefly Lyrical (the 1830 
Volume), 35, 56, 76, 205-230, 
281, 284, 288, 299, 300, 303, 346- 

351, 363, 401-404, 457, 477; and 
see Wilson. 

Poems of 1832, 279-309, 325, 346- 

352, 358, 363, 398, 401, 406- 
414, 457, 465, 477, 520; and 
see Lockhart, and Wilson. 

Poems of 1842, 163, 368, 377-415, 

416-464, 497-501, 515, 550, 553. 
Poet's Mi7id, 234, 237, 403, 
Pollock, Sir Frederick, 438, 551, 
Pollok, Eobert, 177, 178. 
Pope, Alexander, 36, 55, 71, 124, 

200, 373, 529, 628, 636. 
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 64, 

80. 
Princess, The, 65, 266, 412, 417, 

456, 462, 493, 495, 530-567, 623, 

624, 638. 
Pringle, Thomas, 101. 
Procter, Bryan Waller, 259, 364, 

466, 508, 571. 
'Prolusiones Academicse,' 78. 
Pye, Henry James, 569. 



INDEX 



655 



'Quarterly Eeview,' its dating ir- 
regular, 121 ; its position and 
influence, 94, 95, 110, 328, 342, 
449, 451, 455; Gifford as editor, 
101, 110; Lockhart as editor, 
107, 110; silence towards Bul- 
wer and other rising authors, 
110, 111; on Keats, 119, 121- 
123, 373; on Taylor, 164, 165; 
on Montgomery, 186; on Milnes, 
372, 455; attacks Tennyson, 314- 
324, 326-330, 342, 351, 352, 373, 
380, 452, 466, 468; its effect 
upon Tennyson, 404-413; Ster- 
ling's review of the Poems of 
1842, 427-434, 515. 

Eacine, 48. 

Eadcliffe, Mrs., 48. 

Rawnsley, Canon, 3. 

Becollections of Arabian Nights, 
212, 223, 237, 348. 

Eeid, T. Wemyss, 504. 

Eelfe, Lupton, 247. 

' Eepresentative, The,' 107. 

Eobertson, Frederick William, 
631, 632. 

Eobinson, Henry Crabb, 161. 

Robinson, Joseph O., 248, 249. 

Eogers, Samuel, contributor to 
Annuals, 259; on Tennyson, 302, 
511-514; in 'Fraser's' Gallery, 
359; friends write cold reviews, 
427; Hallam refers Peel to him, 
510; Eussell asks about Tenny- 
son, 584; laureateship offered to 
him, 572, 573, 575, 580; Macau- 
lay and others on, 573 ; as a 
poet, 572-574; his character, 
573, 574; mentioned, 129, 139, 
500. 

Bosalind, 300, 392. 



Eossetti, William M., 9, 549, 550, 

552. 
Rousseau, 48. 
Rowe, Nicholas, 569. 
Ruskin, 261. 

Russell, Lord John, 570, 584, 587. 
Russell, Mrs. Matthew, 308. 

St. Agnes, 269, 366, 367, 381, 392, 
431. 

St. Simeon Stylites, 388, 400, 431, 
434, 439. 

Sallust, 48. 

'Sartain's Union Magazine,' 462. 

Schelling, 67. 

Scott, Walter, influences Tenny- 
son, 36; letters to Murray and 
Lockhart on newspaper work, 
108; letter to Lockhart about 
the Annuals, 254; contributes to 
them, 258, 259; editorship of 
'Keepsake' offered to him, 263; 
in ' Fraser 's ' Gallery, 359 ; on 
Joanna Baillie, 471, 472 ; Wilson 
on, 480, 490, 492; refuses lau- 
reateship, 569; his estimate of 
Rogers, 573; mentioned, 48, 53, 
128, 129. 

Scott, William Bell, 264, 

Sea Fairies, 235. 

Sellwood, Louise, 216. 

Settle, Elkanah, 200. 

Shadwell, Thomas, 569. 

Shakespeare, 9, 10, 15, 19, 48, 71, 
133, 209, 221, 264, 268, 358, 471- 
473, 489, 539, 549, 627. 

Shall the Hag Evil Die with Child, 
234. 

Shelley, P. B., Adonais reprinted 
by the 'Apostles,' 151, 152; 
attacked by 'Blackwood's,' 117; 
monody on Keats, 122; position 
and influence, 150-153, 159-161, 






656 



INDEX 



421; influence on Tennyson, 87; 
Browning asks for his works, 
153, 154; The Oxford Un- 
ion debate, 154-159; Stopford 
Brooke on, 56; Swinburne on, 
174; Hunt on, 223; Bulwer on, 
304, 305; Forster on, 485; Titz- 
Gerald on, 552; the 'Edin- 
burgh' on, 373; mentioned, 128, 
138, 145, 224, 354, 371, 484. 

Shenstone, William, 155. 

Siddons, Mrs., 471, 

Sigourney, Mrs., 256. 

Simpkin, Marshall, Messrs., 41. 

Sir Galahad, 439, 638. 

Sisters, The, 348. 

Skipping Bope, The, 420, 459. 

Sleeping Beauty, 237, 348, 392, 
462, 500. 

Smedley, Edward, 270. 

Smith, Horace, 259. 

' Southern Literary Messenger, ' 
449, 450, 455. 

Southey, Mrs., 579. 

Southey, Eobert, friend of Taylor, 
173; on the Annuals, 254, 255; 
contributor to them, 270; on 
Taylor, 164; on Montgomery, 
191; on Jerdan, 295, 297; lau- 
reate, 508, 569, 581; Eogers 
superior to, 573; Taylor on, 104; 
Coleridge on, 214; Tennyson on, 
272; Jerdan on, 296; Wilson on, 
480, 492; mentioned, 129, 139, 
579. 

'Spectator, The,' 106, 225, 239, 
240, 302, 419. 

Spedding, James, with Tennyson 
at Cambridge, 65; Charles 
Tennyson's Poems, 217; asked 
to write for 'The Tribute,' 271 ; 
letter from Tennyson about 
Mill's review, 342; FitzGerald 



and Tennyson visit him at Mire- 
house, 353-355; urges Tennyson 
to visit Wordsworth, 354 ; Tenny- 
son visits him in London, .374; 
letter on Tennyson's movements, 
376; goes to America, 388, 436; 
reviews Poems of 1842, 436, 437, 
553; on Hallam, 607, 613; Fitz- 
Gerald on Spedding, 389; char- 
acter, 553, 607. 

Spedding, John, 353, 354. 

Spenser, 48, 71. 

Spirit Haunts the Year's last 
Hours, 348. 

Spring-Eice, Stephen, 330. 

Stanley, Arthur, 328. 

Stanley, Lord, 517. 

Stanzas, 273, 366, 368. 

Stephen, Leslie, 74. 

Sterling, John, at Cambridge, 64; 
influence on the 'Apostles,' 90; 
editor of 'Athenaeum,' 83; let- 
ter to Trench on St. Agnes, 381; 
letter to Trench comparing 
Tennyson and Keats, 382; re- 
view of Poems of 1842, 427-435; 
on Taylor, 174; Carlyle's life 
of, 90, 428; his character and 
reputation, 428, 429, 483; TVtill's 
opinion of, 614; poems by 
'Archseus,' 482, 483; mentioned, 
364, 374. 

Stone, Frank, 264. 

Suckling, Sir John, 72, 

Suetonius, 48. 

Sumner, Charles, 448. 

'Sunday Mercury,' 43. 

Sunday Mobs, 51. 

Sunderland, Thomas, 154-159. 

Swinburne, 174, 552. 

Tacitus, 48. 
Taine, H. A., 444. 




INDEX 



657 



'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' 303, 
444, 463, 492, 619, 624, 629. 

Talfou/d, Sir Thomas N., 482. 

TalTcintj Oak, The, 420, 432-434, 
439. 

'Tatler- The,' 206, 211. 

Taylor, Heary, on Southey and 
the 'Literary Gazette,' 104; the 
' Edinburgh ' reviews Artevelde, 
133; on Byron and Wordsworth, 
148, 149; on Shelley, 174; on 
Burns, 220; on Charles Tenny- 
son, 270; on G. C. Lewis, 570, 
571; Tennyson and Taylor, 168; 
influence of Tennyson, 371, 372 ; 
Taylor's writings, 164-173, 390; 
his position and influence, 173- 
176; friend of Southey and 
Wordsworth, 173; Hallam refers 
Peel to, 510; the laureateship, 
570; Swinburne on Taylor, 174; 
Moxon on, 357, 500; Wilson on, 
482; Macaulay on, 507. 

Tennyson, Alfred, ancestry, birth, 
relatives, 2-4, 21-25; the disin- 
heritance of his father, 22-24; 
boyhood and youth, 6, 25-36; 
the school at Louth, 25-28; 
Alfred and Charles insepara- 
ble, 27, 28; lines addressed to 
Charles, 8-11; education at 
home, 28-30; aversion to pub- 
licity, 6-21; use of tobacco, 16- 
17; carelessness in dress, 17, 31; 
early poetical tastes, 36, 37, 48, 
49, 52, 55, 87; early efeorts in 
verse, 24, 25, 36, 37; Poems by 
Two Brothers, see that head; 
Alfred compared with Charles, 
36, 214, 215, with Frederick, 
37; goes to Cambridge, 63; his 
friends there, 64, 65; intimacy 
with Hallam, 65, 332, 593, 596; 



'The Apostles,' 69-84, 90, 301; 
impression made by Tennyson, 
75-77; Timbuctoo, see that 
head; plans to edit poems with 
Hallam, 76, 205; Shelley's 
Adonais reprinted, 151-153; the 
Oxford Union Debate, 154-159; 
writes poems, 281 ; Poems chiefly 
Lyrical, see that head; trip to 
Pyrenees, 90-93; leaves univer- 
sity, 279; illness and death of 
his father, 279, 280; contribu- 
tor to the Annuals, 243, 244, 
265-278, 332, 379; adopts lit- 
erary career, 280; at Somersby, 
280, 352, 353; Hallam visits 
him, 281, and predicts pilgrim- 
ages there, 4, 5; Moxon secures 
a poem for 'The Englishman' 
and agrees to publish a pro- 
jected volume of poems, 281, 
282; excursion up the Ehine, 
308, 309, and see Darling 
Boom; the Poems of 1832, see 
that head; sensitiveness to criti- 
cism, 334-336, 341, 342, 378, 389, 
401, 468, 516; absurd criticism 
of, 336; affectation in employing 
unusual words, 336-339; obscu- 
rity, 339; lack of thought, 339, 
340, 366; Tennyson ceases to 
publish, 331; the ten years' si- 
lence, 325-377; death of Hallam, 
595, 596; Tennyson's grief, 333, 
356, 605; Hallam 's influence on 
Tennyson, 332; residence at 
High Beech, 374; at Tunbridge 
Wells, 375; at Boxley, 375; at 
Cheltenham, 377; joins the Ster- 
ling Club, 374; visits Spedding 
at Mirehouse, 353-355, at Lin- 
coln's Inn, 374; would not visit 
Wordsworth, 354; intimacy with 



658 



INDEX 



FitzGerald, 353, with Hartley 
Coleridge, 354; country excur- 
sions, 375-377; Frederick advises 
Mm to publish, 332; demand for 
new editions, 384-387; Poems of 
1842, see that head; pecuniary 
affairs and pension, 501-516; 
The Princess, see that head; 
poet laureate, 568-588; mar- 
riage, 589; In Memoriam, see 
that head; comparison with 
Alford, 364, 365; with Byron, 
83; with Crabbe, 44; with 
Keats, 162; with Taylor, 168; 
Campbell 's influence, 49, 53 ; 
friend of Kemble, 396; altera- 
tions in his poems, 393-414, 
565; imitators, 369-372, 455, 

456, 490; his national feeling, 
213; reputation, 241, 242, 305- 
307, 333, 359-373, 384, 416, 418, 
442, 497-499, 546, 635-640; 
Tennyson's opinion of the 
Prince Consort, 21 ; of Jane 
Austen, 15; of Byron, 339; of 
Medwin's Byron, 9; of Milnes's 
Keats, 8-11; of Southey, 272; 
of Charles Tennyson Turner, 
220, 221; of Wordsworth, 221, 
272; Browning's opinion of 
Tennyson, 37, 404, 405, 413; 
Bulwer's, 322, 519-529, 629; 
Mrs, Cameron's, 14; Carlyle's, 
17, 504, 551; S. T. Coleridge's, 
214, 215, 343-345; Croker's, 
372, 515; Cunningham's, 343; 
Dixon's, 636; Emerson's, 448, 

457, 459 n; FitzGerald 's, 37, 
356, 551-553; Gilfillan's, 287; 
Gladstone's, 513; Griswold's, 
460; A. H. Hallam's, 28, 213; 
H. Hallam's, 509-511, 517; 
Fanny Kemble 's, 328, 329, 396; 



Lockhart's, see that head; Ma- 
eaulay's, 491, 508; Mill's, 342, 
346-352, 364, 434; Morris's, 
638; Moxon's, 357, 400, 500; 
Poe's, 338, 461, 462, 561; 
Sogers 's, 302, 511-514;, Sped- 
ding's, 355, 376; Tayloi 's, 371, 
372; George Tennyson's, 25; 
George Clayton Tennyson's, 25; 
Trench's, 229, 382; Wilson's, 
see that head; Wordsworth's, 
213, 214. See also the titles of 
individual poems. 

Tennyson, Charles (brother), see 
Turner, C. T. 

Tennyson, Charles (uncle), 22. 

Tennyson, Edward (brother), 267. 

Tennyson, Elizabeth Fytche 
(mother), 4. 

Tennyson, Emily (sister), meets 
Hallam, 596; engaged to him, 
281, 597, 599-604, 606; letter 
from him about Charles, 215; 
death of Hallam, 3, 603, 604. 

Tennyson, Frederick (brother), at 
Cambridge, 63; Merivale ad- 
vises his son to meet, 69; 
Poems by Two Brothers, 43, 44, 
56; letters from FitzGerald on 
the sonnet, 219; on the Poems 
of 1842, 387, 389, 421; on The 
Princess, 530, 550; asked to 
write for 'The Tribute,' 272; 
advises Alfred to publish, 332; 
FitzGerald 's estimate of, 37, 
551; the Brownings' estimate 
of, 221; on Hallam, 608; men- 
tioned 2, 3. 

Tennyson, George (grandfather), 
21, 22, 24, 25. 

Tennyson, George Clayton (fath- 
er), maiTiage and children, 2; 
disinherited, 22-24; view of 



INDEX 



659 



Alfied's genius, 25; instructs 
his children, 28; his library, 29; 
writes verses, 36; friend of 
Merivale, 69; death, 280. 

Tennyson, Mary (sister), 601. 

Terence, 48. 

Thackeray, W. M., at Cambridge, 
65; on Brookfield, 64; contribu- 
tor to the 'Times,' 106; Fen- 
dennis, 262; his early writings, 
491, 508; The Newcomes, 498. 

There are three Things which fill 
my Heart, 267. 

Thirlwall, Connop, 67, 606. 

Thomson, James, 36. 

Thompson, W. H., 414, 421, 551. 

Ticknor, William D., 254, 558. 

Timbuctoo, 77, 78, 80-87. 

'Times, The,' 106, 108, 297, 568, 
618, 625, 626, 629, 631, 633. 

To a Lark, 214. 

To after reading a Life and 

Letters, 8. 

To Christopher North, 240, 289- 
292, 294, 305, 314-316, 320, 321, 
350, 351, 402, 407, 423, 450, 465, 
468, 473, 476, 479-481, 485-487, 
496. 

Trench, R. C, at Cambridge with 
Tennyson, 65, 281 ; letter from 
Kemble about the Tennysons, 
76; letters to Kemble about the 
'AthenaBum, ' 84; the Spanish 
expedition, 90, 91; letter from 
Blakesley about the Oxford 
Union debate, 155, 156; letter 
from Sterling about Taylor, 
174; on Charles and Alfred 
Tennyson, 229; asked to write 
for 'Tlbe Tribute,' 271; letters 
from Hallam and Kemble on the 
Poems of 1832, 282, 283; letter 
to Milnes about Tennyson, 380; 



letters from Sterling about St. 
Agnes, 381; about Tennyson and 
Keats, 382; his Poems and 
Genoveva, 390, 391; his Justin 
Martyr, 466; Wilson on, 482; 
Moxon on, 500; mentioned, 364, 
387, 473, 474, 480. 

'Tribute, The,' 270, 273, 277, 278, 
366, 368, 379, 380. 

Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 203, 
204. 

Turner, Charles Tennyson, Poem 
to, by Alfred, 8; he and Alfred 
inseparable, 27, 28; Poems by 
Two Brothers, 41, 42, 51, 53; 
goes to Cambridge, 63; his 
choice of a profession, 24, 216; 
compared with Alfred, 36, 214, 
215; Kemble writes to Trench 
about his Sonnets, 76; Sonnets 
published, 215-220; writes for 
'The Tribute,' 272; inherits 
uncle's property and changes 
name, 216, 272; Hunt on, 211, 
212; Hallam on, 214; Coler- 
idge on, 214, 215; Merivale on, 
279; Spedding on, 217, 218; 
Alfred on, 220, 221; Taylor on, 
221; the Brownings on, 221; 
Trench on, 229; mentioned, 2. 

Turner, Samuel, 24, 216. 

Turner, Sharon, 191, 192. 

Two Voices, 432, 433, 435, 439, 
605. 

Ulysses, 388, 431, 439, 498, 505. 

Vale of Bones, 57. 

Van Dyke, Henry, 60. 

Venables, George Stovin, 64, 72, 

78. 
Vere, Aubrey, see de Vere. 



660 



INDEX 



Vergil, 48, 209. 
Vision of Sin, 439. 

Walking to the Mail, 388. 

Waller, Edmund, 72. 

Walters, John Cuming, 27, 31. 

Warton, Thomas, 569. 

Watts, Alaric Alex., 185, 248, 249, 
262. 

We are Free, 234. 

Wellington, Duke of, 95, 108, 517. 

'Westminster Eeview,' on Mont- 
gomery, 186; on the Poems of 
1830, 207-212, 223, 228, 232, 233, 
235, 236, 326; on the Poems 
of 1842, 427, 434; on The Prin- 
cess, 624; mentioned, 99, 346, 
434. 

Wheeler, Charles S., 458. 

Whewell, William, 271. 

Whipple, Edwin Percy, 460, 461. 

Whittier, J. G., 256. 

Who can say, 349. 

Will Waterproof's Lyrical Mono- 
logue, 8, 460. 

Willis, N. P., 256. 

Wilson, Effingham, 205. 

Wilson, John, his view of contem- 
porary poetry, 130, 230, 484, 
490-492; his desire for praise, 
311-313; Lockhart his mouth- 
piece, 321; 'The Athenasum' on, 
326; on the Poems of 1830, 212, 
227-243, 284, 401-404, 430; Lake 
writes satire against, 293, 294; 
Tennyson's letter to, 293, 294; 
on the Poems of 1832, 286, 287; 
later attacks on Tennyson, 465- 
496; on Hallam's reviews of 
Tennyson, 223, 232, 233; on 
'Blackwood's', 230, 231; on 
'Westminster,' 207; on Jerdan 
and the 'Literary Gazette,' 104; 



on Pollok, 178; on Jeffrey, 178; 
on Montgomery, 180, 181; on 
Joanna Baillie, 470-473, 485; 
on Wordsworth, 475; on Ma- 
caulay, 487, 488 ; on Browning, 
485, 486, 491; on Mrs. Brown- 
ing, 489, 490; on Sterling, 483; 
mentioned, 112, 302, 310, 362; 
and see To Christopher North. 

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 537. 

Woolner, Thomas, 549. 

Wordsworth, Charles, 82, 158. 

Wordsworth, Christopher, 154. 

Wordsworth, William, his position 
and influence, 73, 128-130, 139, 
141, 150, 151, 154, 161, 193, 421, 
475; on contemporary poetry, 
134-136; on reading a volume 
of small poems, 126; friend of 
Taylor, 173; on Montgomery, 
191; on Tennyson, 213, 214; on 
the sonnet, 219, 220; attacked 
by 'Blackwood's,' 241; writes 
for 'The Tribute,' 270; the 
Annuals, 257-259; poetry no 
pastime, 280; Tennyson would 
not visit him, 354: in 'Eraser's' 
Gallery, 359; Poems of Early 
and Late Years, 390; the lau- 
reateship, 508, 569, 570, 575, 
581, 586; death, 568; Hare on, 
68; Mrs. Browning on, 146; 
Taylor on, 149; Tennyson on, 
221, 272; Sterling on, 429; Wil- 
son on, 475, 480, 482, 484; 
Forster on, 485; Moxon on, 
500; BulweV on, 521, 523; men- 
tioned, 71, 150, 214, 215, 326. 

'Works of the Learned,' 98. 

Wortley, Lady Emmeline Stuart, 
269, 271. 

Wright, William, 107. 



INDEX 



661 



Xenophon, 47. 

Yon star of eve so soft and clear, 

44. 
'Yorkshire Literary Annual,' 266. 



You ask me why though ill at ease, 

44. 
You might have won, 11. 
Young, Edward, 48. 

Z., see Lockhart. 




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